Baseball: Ohio Northern (11-10 Overall) at Bluffton (8-11 Overall)
Thursday, April 7, 2022, 4:15 p.m. – Memorial Field, Bluffton, Ohio
Thursday's Preview: Having won six of its past seven games, the Ohio Northern baseball team travels to take on Bluffton on Thursday … The Polar Bears are coming off Monday's 13-3 win at Oberlin … Freshman Ethan Spears paced the ONU offense with a career-high three hits and five RBIs … Spears hit a pair of two-run home runs, including an inside-the park homer, and added an RBI triple … Freshman Sam Harrison had three singles and finished with two RBIs … Senior Corey McMann added a double and had two RBIs … Sophomore Hayden Heche and junior Austin Mathews allowed a combined one run on five hits and two walks over the first seven innings, and freshman Jack Ballas pitched the final two frames … McMann leads the team in batting average (.392), hits (29) and runs (17) … Junior Jacob Wenning ranks second on the team in batting average (.365) and hits (27) … Junior Nate Webb has a team-high 18 RBIs … McMann has nine doubles this season and ranks fourth all-time at ONU with 39 career doubles … McMann is tied for 28th in program history with 141 career hits … Senior Chayten Overholt needs six hits to join the 100-Hit Club … Freshman Joey Kennedy leads ONU in steals (9) … Sophomore Noah Truax leads the Polar Bears' pitching staff in ERA (1.86), and junior Tim Knapschaefer ranks second with a 2.16 ERA … Knapschaefer has a team-high 26 strikeouts … Heartland Conference member Bluffton enters Thursday's game at 8-11 overall coming off Tuesday's doubleheader sweep of Manchester (Ind.), winning 4-2 in Game 1 and 11-2 in Game 2 … Jake Baumgartner leads the Beavers in batting average (.380), hits (27) and doubles (7) and ranks second in RBIs (11) … Jack Towell has a team-high 12 RBIs … Garrett O'Reilly is hitting .353, and Kenny Schneider is hitting .350 … Jacob Boelkens (3-0, 2.66 ERA, 16 strikeouts), Andrew Collinsworth (1-1, 3.13 ERA, 14 strikeouts) and Carson Curnutte (1-2, 3.86 ERA, 19 strikeouts) lead the Bluffton pitching staff.
Ohio Northern Batting Leaders
| Batting Ave. | Hits | Runs | RBI | |||||||||||
| 1. | McMann | .392 | 1. | McMann | 29 | 1. | McMann | 17 | 1. | Webb | 18 | |||
| 2. | Wenning | .365 | 2. | Wenning | 27 | 2. | Overholt | 16 | 2. | Stevens | 17 | |||
| 3. | Kennedy | .310 | 3. | Webb | 21 | 3. | Wenning | 15 | 3. | McMann | 14 | |||
| Overholt | 21 | Webb | 15 | Wenning | 14 | |||||||||
| Overholt | 14 |
Ohio Northern Pitching Leaders
| Wins | ERA (Min. 6 Inn.) | Strikeouts | ||||||||
| 1. | Truax | 2 | 1. | Truax | 1.86 | 1. | Knapschaefer | 26 | ||
| Hutchins | 2 | 2. | Knapschaefer | 2.16 | 2. | Lawrence | 24 | |||
| Duncan | 2 | 3. | Pitko | 5.16 | 3. | Truax | 20 |
All-Time Series: Ohio Northern leads the all-time series with Bluffton by a 100-39-6 margin, including 36-20-4 on the road … ONU has won eight of the past 10 meetings … The teams last met in April 2019 when Bluffton came away with a 7-4 win in Ada.
Head Coach Gene Stechschulte: Stechschulte is in his 11th season at the helm of the Ohio Northern baseball team … He has a 219-163 record, a winning percentage of .573.