Otterbein takes both games of a doubleheader over Baseball 6-5 and 8-4 to wrap up conference play
By Steven Wright
ADA - The Ohio Northern baseball team dropped its final two games of the season in a doubleheader with Otterbein Sunday afternoon at Wander Field.
The Cardinals won Game 1 6-5 and won Game 2 8-4.
Brett Katana and Greg Gibbons led the Polar Bears on the day by both going 3-for-6 at the dish. Katana added an RBI, while Gibbons scored a run.
The Polar Bears minimized the damage in the first two innings of Game 1 with two fantastic outfield assists that caught potential Cardinal runs at the plate.
Josh Coleman attempted to score from first base on a Brian Hiscox double down the left field line in the first, but Matt Rader hit Mike Hoelzel at shortstop who threw a perfect strike to Adam Yunker who blocked the plate and tagged out Coleman.
Hiscox would come around to score a batter later to put the Cardinals up 1-0.
In the next inning, John Sansbury for OC tried to score on a single to center from second base, but again the Polar Bears came up with a huge play, as Eric Yunker threw a one hopper that his brother Adam caught to tag out the runner.
The only runs scored the remainder of the game were in the fifth inning when both teams dropped a five-spot to combine for 10 total runs in the inning.
Otterbein got their five runs in the fifth on three hits and four walks.
Ohio Northern answered right away to bring the score to 6-5 in favor of OC.
Adam Yunker knocked in Greg Gibbons on a single up the middle for ONU's first run, and a batter later Rader walked to load the bases.
Eric Yunker came home during the next at bat on a passed ball while Adam Yunker and Rader each advanced a base.
After a strikeout and another walk drawn by Loren Fleischman with two outs in the inning, Brett Katana had a two-RBI check swing single up the middle and left runners on second and third.
Hoelzel then singled to a diving second baseman that brought home a hustling Fleischman who caught the defense off guard by scoring from second base on the infield hit.
Each team was held scoreless over the final two innings.
Both starters were the pitchers of decision, as Cody Fisher took the loss and fell to 1-3. John LaCorte (2-3) picked up the victory, while Alex Hayes pitched 2 1/3 innings to pick up his sixth save of the year.
In Game 2, OC took a commanding 7-0 lead after scoring three in the first, one in the third and three in the fourth.
Hoelzel had a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the fourth to bring home Hampshire and get ONU on the board.
Each team also scored a run in its respective half of the fifth inning.
ONU got its run when Brandon Aselage reached on an error by the shortstop that plated Aaron Lee to make the score 8-2.
Aselage then drove home Adam Yunker in the seventh, and Hoelzel scored on a wild pitch in the eighth to take the game to its eventual final score of 8-4.
Kevin Sigg took the loss to fall to 0-1, while OC starter Zach McGrain improved to 5-0 with the win.