SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – The North Dakota State University baseball team saw its 2015 season come to a close after a 15-5 loss to the Fort Wayne Mastodons (27-25) in a Summit League tournament elimination game on Thursday, May 21, at Sioux Falls Stadium.

The Bison end the season at 20-31 overall, marking the sixth consecutive season NDSU has won at least 20 games.

Ben Petersen led NDSU at the plate, going 2-for-3 with a triple and RBI, while Juan Gamez added a pair of runs batted in and hit his team-high eighth home run of the season. JD Larimer and John Skrbec also drove in two runs for NDSU.

Senior right-handed pitcher David Ernst took the loss on the mound in his final start for North Dakota State after allowing six earned runs on seven hits with two strikeouts and three walks.

Ernst ends his career at NDSU ranked first in career games started with 53, and second in career innings pitched with 312 and a third.

The Bison took an early 1-0 lead over Fort Wayne in the top of the first inning on Petersen's RBI triple to right center. It was the first triple of his career.

The Mastodons answered, though, plating one run in the second, three in the third, six in the fourth and one in the sixth to gain an 11-1 lead.

NDSU trimmed the deficit to 11-3 in the top of the seventh when Gamez powered a 3-2 pitch over the left field fence to score two runs, but IPFW plated four runs in the bottom-half of the frame to build its lead to 15-3.

The Bison added two runs in the top of the eighth on a sacrifice fly from Skrbec and a pinch-hit infield RBI single from Larimer, cutting the Fort Wayne lead to 15-5, but that was as close as they could get the remainder of the game.

Greg Kaiser and Jonathan Valenzuela-Reece each tallied four RBI and went 3-for-5 at the plate to lead the Fort Wayne offense, with Kaiser also tallying a homer.

IPFW starter Ryan Wells tallied the win on the mound after giving up three earned runs on five hits with four strikeouts and one walk in seven innings to improve to 5-6 on the season.