Baseball: Bluffton (11-7 Overall) at Ohio Northern (12-9 Overall)
Tuesday, April 4, 2023, 4 p.m. – Wander Field, Ada, Ohio
Tuesday's Preview: Ohio Northern is hosting a non-conference game against Bluffton on Tuesday … ONU and BU played last Thursday with the Beavers coming away with a 9-6 victory in Ada … The Polar Bears are coming off Sunday's doubleheader against No. 19 Marietta, dropping both games by identical 11-2 scores … Through 21 games this season, sophomore Joey Kennedy leads ONU with a .382 batting average followed by junior Logan Stevens (.291) … Kennedy also has a team-best 15 runs and ranks third in the Ohio Athletic Conference with 11 steals … Stevens has a team-best 23 hits and 16 RBIs… Stevens and senior Nate Webb have a team-best four home runs each, which is tied for eighth in the OAC … Senior Jack Hutchins ranks third in the OAC in ERA (2.00) among qualified pitchers … Senior Tim Knapschaefer ranks eighth in the OAC in strikeouts (31) … Sophomore Vaughn Duncan has an OAC-best six saves … Knapschaefer has 128 career strikeouts, which ranks 20th in program history … Fifth-year senior Corey McMann ranks fourth all-time at ONU with 186 career hits and is a career .327 hitter … McMann ranks third all-time at ONU with 45 career doubles, which is one shy of the program record of 46 shared by Luke Klinehoffer and Scott Bush … Senior Jacob Wenning is tied for 45th all-time at ONU with 121 career hits and is a career .324 hitter … Bluffton is coming off Monday's 5-2 win at Defiance, marking their fifth straight victory … Through 18 games, Jack Towell (.389) and Grant Hovest (.351) lead the Beavers in batting average … Towell has a team-high 28 hits, eight doubles, three home runs and 25 RBIs … Hovest has a team-best 17 runs … On the mound, Andrew Collinsworth has a 4.18 ERA with 20 strikeouts in 28 innings, and Jacob Boelkens has a 4.87 ERA with 11 strikeouts in 20.1 innings … Carson Curnutte has a team-high 22 strikeouts.
Ohio Northern Batting Leaders
| Batting Avg. | Hits | Runs | RBI | |||||||||||
| 1. | Kennedy | .382 | 1. | Stevens | 23 | 1. | Kennedy | 15 | 1. | Stevens | 16 | |||
| 2. | Stevens | .291 | 2. | McMann | 22 | 2. | Reed | 13 | 2. | Webb | 14 | |||
| 3. | McMann | .286 | 3. | Kennedy | 21 | 3. | Webb | 12 | 3. | Wenning | 13 | |||
| Webb | .286 | Wenning | 12 |
Ohio Northern Pitching Leaders
| Wins | ERA | Strikeouts | ||||||||
| 1. | Hutchins | 3 | 1. | Duncan | 1.38 | 1. | Knapschaefer | 31 | ||
| 2. | Altaffer | 2 | 2. | Altaffer | 1.40 | 2. | Hutchins | 25 | ||
| Peterson | 2 | 3. | Hutchins | 2.00 | 3. | Altaffer | 19 | |||
| Peterson | 19 |
All-Time Series: Ohio Northern leads the all-time series with Bluffton by a 101-41-6 margin, including a 60-19-2 mark in Ada … The teams last met on March 30 with BU coming away with a 9-6 win in Ada … BU has won three of the past four meetings.
Head Coach Gene Stechschulte: Stechschulte is in his 12th season at the helm of the Ohio Northern baseball team … He has a 239-183 record, a winning percentage of .566.