Oberlin, Ohio - The Oberlin College baseball team surrendered three ninth-inning runs as the visiting Otterbein University Cardinals rallied late to steal away a 10-9 victory over the Yeomen on Wednesday afternoon at Dill Field.
Oberlin headed into the top of the ninth with a 9-7 lead but the first two Otterbein hitters would reach base to chase senior reliever
Luigi Smarro from the game and put runners on the corners with nobody out. After a base-running blunder by the Cardinals that resulted in an out, pitcher
Zachary Ritts (1-1) found himself ahead in the cout 1-2 but proceeded to bean reigning Ohio Athletic Conference Hitter of the Week Brayden Quincel in the back to bring the go-ahead run up to the plate. Gavin Thompson and Max McCann followed with RBI singles to tie it before Gavin Wolf put the Cardinals in front for the first time all game with a sacrifice fly.
Ethan Hurwitz delivered a one-out single in the bottom of the ninth but Otterbein closer Sam Sethna induced a game-ending 1-4-6-3 double play to end the game while locking down his third save of the year.
Oberlin jumped all over Otterbein from the onset, scoring six runs in the first inning on six hits and two errors. Three straight run-scoring singles from Hurwitz,
Kyle Baxt, and
Jay Aghanya made it 3-0 and after another run came home on an error,
Brady Groves belted a two-run double that short-hopped the wall in center that plated
Anton Shelton and
Joe Strabley.
A two-out RBI double from Aghanya in the second would make it a 7-0 Oberlin advantage but after cruising through the front two innings, senior starter
Andrew Shen ran into a world of trouble of the third as the Cardinals worked their way back into the game with a five-run inning, using four hits, a walk, a hit batter, and an Oberlin error to trim the gap down to just two.
The Yeomen would respond with two runs on Baxt's two-out, two-run single in the fourth to make it 9-5 but the Otterbein bullpen would keep Oberlin off the board the rest of the way. Baxt would ultimately finish the day 4-for-5 with a double, two runs scored, and three RBIs.
Smarro entered in the top of the fifth and lead-off error would prove costly in the end as McCann took advantage with a two-out, two-run home run over the wall in right center to get the Cards back within deuce, 9-7.
Smarro would sit down the opposition in order in the sixth and seventh before leaving a pair stranded in the eighth. Unfortunately, he hit the end of the road in the ninth after throwing 80 pitches in four-plus innings of work.
Oberlin, which out-hit Otterbein 15-13, had just three hits over the final five frames. In addition to Baxt, the Yeomen also got multi-hit efforts from
Zach Masnikoff, Groves, Strabley, Hurwitz, and Aghanya as they each finished with two.
Braydon McCloskey (1-0) got the win out of the bird cage as he allowed just two hits and fanned three while holding the Yeomen scoreless over the final 4.2 innings.
The loss dropped the Yeomen back to 5-4 while the Cards moved to 9-4.
Oberlin is back in action on Saturday for a doubleheader at Westminster University.
