Baseball splits pair of come-from-behind wins with OAC Tournament-bound Marietta 6-5 and 4-8

By Steven Wright

ADA - Senior Brian Hill pitched a complete game and freshman Matt Hampshire hit the game-winning RBI single in the bottom of the 7th of Game 1 to lift the Ohio Northern baseball team to a 6-5 victory before dropping Game 2 8-4 in 11 innings Saturday afternoon at Wander Field.

The Polar Bears are now 15-21 and 4-12 in the Ohio Athletic Conference, while the Pioneers are 24-12 and finish OAC play 12-6.

In the bottom of the seventh of Game 1, Matt Rader was stealing on a hit-and-run when Hampshire singled up the middle on a ball that went just by the second baseman.

The hard charging center fielder threw the ball right on the money to the plate, but Rader avoided the tag to score the game-winning run.

Hill (6-5) went all seven innings and had 10 strikeouts on Senior Day, while giving up only one earned run of the five Pioneer runs. Chris Stewart was the losing pitcher and is now 4-2.

Marietta controlled the game early on by scoring two runs in each of the first two innings, all four of which were unearned.

Northern got on the board in the third inning when Mark Hayes knocked a triple to center field that was nearly caught by the Marietta center fielder. Greg Gibbons singled him home on the next at-bat.

A few batters later, Gibbons scored on an RBI double to left field by Matt Rader.

The Pioneers extended their lead to 5-2 in the top of the fifth inning before ONU exploded for three in bottom of the sixth.

Brett Katana led off the inning with a solo blast over the right center field fence.

Gibbons then knocked a two-out, two-RBI single to left center to plate Mike Hoelzel and Loren Fleischman to tie the game at 5-5 and set up Ohio Northern's seventh inning heroics.

Marietta was the team playing come-from-behind in Game 2, erasing an early 2-0 deficit.

ONU scored two in the bottom of the second back-to-back RBI hits by Hayes and Gibbons.

MC got one in the top of the third off a home run before starting pitchers Justin Miller (ONU) and Brian Gasser (MC) shut down the opposing offenses until the seventh inning.

The Pioneers tied the game up in the top of the seventh with one run and took their first lead of the game in the top of the eighth with another run.

Fleischman was hit by a pitch then reached second on a balk before Hoelzel knocked him in with a single through the right side to tie the game 3-3.

After a scoreless ninth, Marietta again took the lead 4-3 in the tenth.

Katana led off the ONU half of the tenth by also getting hit by a pitch. He advanced to second on a Hampshire ground ball out, advanced to third on a Fleischman ground ball out and scored on a wild pitch to tie the game yet again at 4-4.

Marietta then scored four runs on five hits in the 11th to close out the Polar Bears.

Ben Stoll took the loss for ONU and falls to 1-1. Mark Williams picked up the win and is now 4-2.

ONU will end its season tomorrow at home with a doubleheader against Otterbein at 1 pm.