Baseball splits doubleheader versus Dominican (Ill.) and Widener (Pa.)

By: Andrew Korba

FORT MYERS (Fla.) -- The Ohio Northern baseball team split its two games on Thursday, defeating Dominican (Ill.) 8-5 and falling to Widener (Pa.) 4-2 at the Gene Cusic Classic.

The Polar Bears are now 4-3 on the season. Dominican falls to 2-3 and Widener improves to 2-5 on the year.

Against Dominican, freshman Grant Wilson led the Polar Bears, going 5-for-5 with two RBI's and a run scored.

Freshman Ben Eckert picked up a no decision, going six innings, giving up two runs and striking out six.

Senior Bryce Sedio picked up the win to move to 2-0 on the season, while Chance Emlund took the loss and falls to 1-1.

Northern struck for four runs in the eighth inning to break a 4-4 tie.

Senior Devin Kisor led off the inning with a bunt single and was sacrificed to second by sophomore Brady Foley.

Sophomore Jack LaMarca would follow with a single, moving Kisor to third.

A wild pitch scored Kisor to give ONU 5-4 lead. LaMarca also advanced to second on the play.

Junior Daniel Rodriguez would rip a double to left, scoring LaMarca.

The Polar Bears would score two more runs on a RBI single by Wilson and an error.

The Stars threatened in the ninth and brought the go ahead run to the plate, but freshman Alex Crabtree induced a flyout to end the game.

Northern scored two runs in the first inning on RBI singles from Wilson and freshman Nick Eltzroth.

Dominican would tie the game in the third, but ONU responded in the bottom half with a run of its own on a RBI single from senior Cory Martin.

Kisor would hit a run scoring single in the fifth to score Wilson and push the Polar Bears lead to 4-2.

Against Widener, the Pride scored three runs in the first inning to grab an early lead.

The Polar Bears would get on the board in the fourth inning, when Wilson hit an RBI groundout that scored sophomore Dan Belliveau.

Widener would add a run in the sixth inning to expand its lead to 4-1.

Rodriguez would reach on an error in the seventh, scoring Martin and cutting the ONU deficit to 4-2.

Colin Weiss pitched the ninth for the save and Brandon McCloskey scattered two runs over 6.1 innings to pick up the win.

Freshman Cal VonStein (0-1) went six innings, giving up four runs on six hits and striking out two.

Ohio Northern will return to action on Friday when it faces off against Olivet (Mich.) at 10 am.