Gibbons leads Baseball in OAC double header at No. 4 Heidelberg

By Tim Glon

TIFFIN -- Greg Gibbons hit a solo home run and collected three hits on the day but Ohio Northern dropped an Ohio Athletic Conference baseball doubleheader at No. 4-ranked Heidelberg 6-2 and 7-3 Tuesday afternoon at Peaceful Valley.

The Polar Bears fall to 16-7 overall and 2-4 in OAC action, while the Student Princes improve to 23-4, 4-2.

In Game 1, Northern evened the score at 1-1 in the top of the second when Eric Yunker singled, advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt by Loren Fleischman, went to third on a wild pitch and scored on a passed ball.

Gibbons gave the Polar Bears a 2-1 lead with a line drive home run to left field in the top of the third.

HU tied the game at 2-2 with an unearned run in the bottom of the fifth without the benefit of a hit, drawing a pair of walks and scoring on an errant throw on a double play attempt.

Heidelberg broke the game open with a 4-run sixth frame. HU went up 3-2 on a RBI triple by Steve Decker the bottom of the sixth. Lashin later scored on a single by Derek Andrzejczak and Andrzejczak added the Student princes' fifth run, scoring on a sacrifice fly.

An infield single plated the final run of the frame.

Justin Good (2-1) threw well in a losing effort, allowing only one hit in five-plus innings of work.

In Game 2, Brett Katana got hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to drive in Adam Yunker to give the Polar Bears a quick 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning.

Northern made it 2-0 when Matt Rader scored on a HU error in the top of the third.

But the Student Princes batted around in the bottom of the fourth, scoring six runs, to take a 6-2 lead.

Trailing 7-2 in the top of the ninth, Northern got an RBI single by Gibbons to score Rader and make it a 7-3 contest.

Gibbons finished the day 3 for 5 with a pair of RBI to lead the ONU offense.

The Polar Bears will return to action Saturday at Wander Field with a 1 pm double header against Baldwin-Wallace