Baseball posts 10-9 win over Illinois College and 3-1 victory over Thiel (Pa.)

By: Andrew Korba

FORT MYERS (Fla.) -- The Ohio Northern baseball team posted a 3-1 victory over Illinois College and a 10-9 extra inning victory over Thiel (Pa.) on Tuesday at the Gene Cusic Classic.

The Polar Bears are now 3-2 on the season. Both Illinois College and Thiel fall to 2-3.

Against Illinois College, three Northern pitchers combined to give up one run on four hits.

Freshman Ben Glischinski picked up the win, going five innings, giving up three hits and striking out five.

Junior Andrew Tople pitched three scoreless innings in relief and freshman Nick Eltzroth picked up his first career save.

The Polar Bears jumped on the board first in the second inning.

Eltzroth drew a one out walk and scored on a double by freshman Clay Small.

ONU picked up two insurance runs in the ninth inning.

Small drew a walk and pinch runner, sophomore Derek Lenardos, stole second and advanced to third on a throwing error.

Sophomore Brady Foley came up and knocked a single to left, scoring Lenardos and expanding the ONU lead to 2-0.

Sophomore Jack LaMarca would then double and Foley scored on an error by the right fielder, to give the Polar Bears a 3-0 advantage.

In the game against Thiel, the teams found themselves tied 9-9 entering the ninth.

In the bottom of the ninth, the Tomcats had runners on first and second, but Foley induced a groundball double play to get out of the jam.

In the tenth, Eltzroth drew a one out walk and advanced to second on a passed ball.

After a groundout, freshman Zack Niekamp ripped a single to right, scoring Eltzroth and putting ONU back on top, 10-9.

The Tomcats had the tying run on third in their half of the tenth, but freshman Alex Crabtree got Jarod Nanna to pop out to end the game.

Crabtree picked up his first career save and Foley got his first career win.

Northern scored first when LaMarca led off the game with a walk, stole second and scored on an RBI single by sophomore Dan Belliveau.

Belliveau would come around to score on a wild pitch, giving ONU a 2-0 lead.

The Tomcats would come right back and score two runs of their own in the first.

The Polar Bears responded and plated two runs in the second to take a 4-2 lead on an RBI groundout by Belliveau and a triple from senior Cory Martin.

Thiel would score three runs in the third to retake the lead, 5-4.

ONU took the lead back in the fifth on a RBI single from Niekamp and a bases loaded walk from LaMarca.

The Polar Bears expanded the lead to 9-5 in the sixth, getting run scoring singles from freshman Grant Wilson, Martin and Eltzroth.

The Tomcats would comeback to tie the game at 9-9 with four runs in the seventh.

Martin finished the game 4-for-6 with 2 RBI's and Belliveau finished the game going 4-for-5 with 2 RBI's and Niekamp went 3-for-6 with 2 RBI's.

Ohio Northern will return to action on Thursday when it plays Dominican (Ill.) at 10 am and Widener (Pa.) at 1 pm.