Canton, N.Y. - Struggling to keep the hosts off the scoreboard, the Clarkson University Baseball team dropped a Saturday doubleheader at St. Lawrence University, 9-4 in game one and 23-12 in game two, closing out the 2026 regular season.
Clarkson draws level at 16-16 overall while finishing 7-11 in Liberty League play in the 2026 campaign. The Knights will now wait on league contests elsewhere that will determine if and where they could be playing next weekend. St. Lawrence improves with a 16-14 overall record, finishing 9-8 in conference play.
David Harris and Aidan Kufner combined to get the Knights on the front foot early in game one as Kuefner tripled on the third pitch of the game to lead-off the top of the first. Harris then followed in the two-hole, ripping a drive to right field that cleared the fence with room to spare as Clarkson led 2-0 after the first half-inning.
Clarkson added a third in the second as James Chagnon walked to lead off the inning before Aiden Serrano doubled down the left-field line to put runners in scoring position with just one out. A wild pitch in the next at-bat traveled directly to the backstop allowing both Chagnon and Serrano to advance a base and make it 3-0.
The Saints would tie the contest with two runs in the bottom half of the second and one in the third as the game entered the middle innings at 3-3. After a scoreless fourth, the hosts would get two more in the bottom of the fifth, taking a 5-3 lead into the sixth.
Changon led off the top half of the sixth with a single to right that landed just in front of the St. Lawrence outfielder but slid under his glove and all the way to the wall allowing Chagnon to reach third before the ball was returned to the infield. In the next at-bat, Jackson Waters connected on a towering fly to center-field that had enough distance on it to score Chagnon and bring it back to a one-run affair.
SLU managed to put the game away over the next few innings however, with three runs off three hits in the bottom of the sixth and a solo home run to lead off the bottom of the eighth, taking the second game of the series and first of the day, 9-4.
Clarkson finished with seven hits in the opener as Kuefner, Harris, CJ Cartier, Chagnon, Waters, Serrano and Nolan Merrow all had one each. Harris led with two runs batted in while scoring once himself. CJ Kanick was handed his second loss of the year for the Golden Knights, striking out four while giving up nine hits through 4.2 innings in the start. Joe Laprade went eight innings with six strikeouts on the mound for the Saints in the win. Eddie Morrissey and Max Cloutier both produced three hits each at the plate as Morrissey drove in three runs as well.
To start game two, Nolan Merrow led off with a double to the right center gap before moving to third on a sacrifice bunt from James Mason. A deep fly off the bat of CJ Cartier to left field would do its job, scoring Merrow from third and giving Clarkson an early 1-0 lead.
In the bottom of the first, St. Lawrence provided an immediate answer that flipped the game around, plating six runs capped off by a grand slam from John Donnellan down the left field line.
Undeterred by the early adversity, Clarkson would go on to chip away at the lead adding another run in the top of the second as John Swartz would drive in Aidan Kuefner on a grounder before opening the floodgates themselves in the top of the third. Merrow, Mason and Cartier loaded the bases on the first three at bats of the half-inning before James Chagnon would reach on an infield single, scoring Merrow to make it 6-3. A wild pitch would provide Clarkson with the opportunity to push their second run of the frame across while Jackson Waters would force a five-pitch walk to immediately juice the bags again, still with no outs. Aidan Kuefner made it 6-5 St. Lawrence with a sacrifice fly to left but two back-to-back doubles from Swartz and Zach Rider, down both foul lines, brought across the fourth, fifth and sixth Golden Knight runs to flip the advantage to 8-6 in favor of Clarkson.
The hosts would again find a working combination in the bottom half of the third as four more runs of their own quickly turned the lead back to 10-8 before adding another solo score in the bottom of the fourth.
Jackson Waters answered a St. Lawrence pitching change in the top of the fifth with a solo shot to left, leading off what would become another two-run inning for the Knights. After Kuefner would be plunked in the next at-bat, the junior quickly moved to third off the back of a wild pitch and stolen base. After the SLU defense managed to get out number one, Swartz continued to help the cause at the plate with a single up the middle to plate Kuefner and make it just a one-run contest.
SLU would continue to answer the Clarkson offense with offense of their own as the Saints tallied three more runs with a wild pitch score and Eddie Morrissey two-run homer to right as the lead grew to 14-10.
With 24 combined runs already tallied by the end of the fifth, Mason led off the sixth reaching on an error by the shortstop before moving to second on an errant pickoff attempt by the pitcher. A drawn walk by Cartier and infield single from Chagnon loaded the bases again with no outs before two consecutive fielder's choices from Waters and Kuefner meant Clarkson would now trail just 14-12.
The remainder of the afternoon however, would be all St. Lawrence as the hosts would go on to add two more in the bottom of the sixth, one more in the seventh and six in the home-half of the eighth, earning the run-rule win following a grand slam from Ethan Harris that closed the game out at 23-12.
Merrow, Chagnon and Swartz led the Knights at the plate in game two with two hits apiece while seven others registered at least one. Swartz would finish with a team-high three RBIs just ahead of Waters, Kuefner and Rider who all drove in two. Every St. Lawrence batter that registered a plate appearance had at least one hit led by John Gannon with four. John Donnellan and Harris would each drive in four runs apiece.
