Wilmington, Ohio – Powered by a 14-hit offensive outburst and a solid first career start from first-year right-hander Jameson Bryant, the Oberlin College baseball team completed a three-game weekend sweep over the Wilmington Quakers with a 9-5 victory on Sunday. 

Bryant, making his fifth appearance of the year, was rock solid in his starting debut. The Cape Elizabeth, Maine native tossed 4.2 innings, giving up eight hits, four runs (two earned) while striking out four. 

"I was for sure nervous before my first start, but I just had to treat it like any other time I'm pitching," Bryant said. "Once I got into a rhythm, the nerves went away. My biggest focus was on throwing strikes and letting our team take care of the rest."

The Oberlin offense was quiet through the first five innings of the contest. Only scraping across a run on a Wilmington error in the top of the second and an RBI single from fourth-year catcher Anton Shelton in the fourth to score second-year left fielder Daniel Devapalan.

Shelton finished the day with a season-high three hits.

"[I'm] happy to see the offense come together behind some great pitching," Shelton said. " Our pitching made the offense's job easy this weekend, and we were able to capitalize. [It] felt great to see some hits drop as well as Brady [Groves], [Devapalan], and [Daniel] Krabill continue to stay hot."

Groves and Devapalan finished the day with two hits a piece while Krabill ripped his first double of the season. 

In the top half of the sixth, Devapalan laced a one-out double just inside the left field foul line and came around to score when the next batter, first-year infielder Robbie Lynn, dropped an RBI single into the right-center gap. This cut Wilmington's lead to one, 4-3. 

Singles from Shelton and second-year infielder Sam Labrecque loaded the bases with one out. Second-year infielder You-Fu Chen delivered a sacrifice fly to center to knot the score at 4.

First-year center fielder Patrick Leonard and third-year right-fielder Brady Groves walked to put the Yeomen ahead by one. Labrecque came around to score on a passed ball to cap off Oberlin's four-run inning, while they now led 6-4.

In relief of Bryant, the Yeomen turned to third-year right-hander Davis Hayes. The Asheville, NC native faced the minimum through 2.1 spotless innings of relief while racking up four strikeouts. His performance was highlighted by a thrown-bat strikeout on a curveball, an "expelliarmus," as Owen Potter '25 called it. Hayes earned his first win of the season.

"Every pitch was working today and I was able to help the team out in a crucial momentum swing appearance," Hayes said. 

The Oberlin offense added insurance runs in the eighth and ninth innings to give the pitching staff some room to work with. 

In the top half of the eighth, third-year first baseman Kyle Baxt lined an RBI single down the left field line to score Leonard and make it a 7-4 game.

In the top of the ninth, Lynn and Shelton singled and both came around to score on a wild pitch and an RBI groundout from Labrecque to make it a 9-5 game.

First-year right-hander Quinn Bamberger came on in relief of Hayes and picked up the six-out save for the Yeomen, the first of his career. 

With the win, the Yeomen moved back to .500 at 6-6-1.

The Yeomen are back on the diamond Wednesday, March 18, against Washington and Jefferson College. First pitch is scheduled for 4 p.m.

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