CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - The University of Dubuque baseball team began the American Rivers Conference Tournament on Thursday morning against Buena Vista and got off to a slow start, falling into a 6-0 hole. A furious late rally pulled UD within one run in the ninth but the rally would come up just short.

With the wind howling out to left field, the Beavers would take full advantage early. Buena Vista drilled three home runs over the first four innings to race out to a 6-0 lead to chase UD starter Aiden Sullivan. Ben Kettering would come in relief and kept the Spartans in the contest, keeping the Beavers off the scoreboard over the final 4.2 innings.

With Kettering slowing the Beavers offense down, the UD bats finally came alive in the sixth. UD would come up with four hits and two runs in the sixth behind an RBI sacrifice fly from Jake Cenader and an RBI walk by Colton Pfeiefer, cutting the deficit to 6-2.

A quiet seventh and eighth innings gave the Spartans just three outs to play with but they would not go down easy. Max Snowden led off the inning with a triple to right center and after a Central error, walk and single, suddenly it was a 6-4 game and the Spartans had the go-ahead run at the plate. Cole DeStefanis had a seeing-eye single through the left side to make it 6-5 and giving the Spartans two runners on with just one out. However, a flare to left field off the bat of Kellen Mitchell was caught with a diving catch and Jordan Goldstein would strike out to end the UD rally one run short.

In his 4.2 innings of relief, Kettering fanned five Beavers and allowed just four hits. Aiden Sullivan picked up just his second loss of the season. Patrick Rafferty was in the middle of the comeback attempt, reaching base four times with three hits and one walk.

The Spartans head into an elimination game at 5 p.m. against the loser of #1 Coe vs. #8 Central.