Baseball falls in 2012 home opener to the Britons, 3-1

By: Jay Garneau

ADA – The Ohio Northern men's baseball team dropped its home opener, losing 3-1 to Albion (Mich.) in a non-conference contest at Wander Field on Tuesday evening.

Ohio Northern falls to 3-6 overall, while the Britons improve to 2-6.

Sophomore Matt Magni was the tough-luck loser, tossing 5.2 innings, allowing three hits and two runs (one earned), walking just one batter.

Junior Shane Parks also threw 1.2 perfect innings in relief, striking out two of the five batters he faced.

Albion's Brett Timmer finished with a complete game five-hitter, walking none and striking out six Polar Bears.

The Polar Bears got on the board first in the second inning, taking a 1-0 lead.

Senior Matt Hampshire hit a high fly ball on the infield towards third base, but the wind pulled it back toward home plate. The ball fell, and Hampshire advanced to second.

After being advanced to third on a groundout, an infield single from senior Josh Murphy plated Hampshire.

Albion answered back with two runs in the sixth, when Brendan Diamond reached on a fielder's choice, stole second, and scored on a Chris Kruppe single to the gap.

The Britons scored another run on a Polar Bear error, taking a 2-1 advantage.

In the top of the eighth, Chuck DeClarke led off the inning with a single. After a walk and a fielder's choice, he scored on a B.J. Konkle single to extend the lead to 3-1.

Ohio Northern's hitters went down in order in each of the sixth, seventh and eighth innings.

Sophomore Cory Martin singled with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, but was stranded when a groundout ended the game.

The Polar Bears will look to rebound when they travel to DePauw for a three-game series this weekend, beginning with a doubleheader starting at 1 p.m. on Saturday.

DePauw is sitting just outside the top 25 in the D3Baseball.com national poll.