Baseball gets pair of key OAC victories with 13-2, 8-4 sweep of Wilmington

By Tim Glon

ADA — The Ohio Northern baseball team picked up a pair of key Ohio Athletic Conference victories with a 13-2, 8-4 sweep of Wilmington on a warm and sunny Tuesday afternoon at Wander Field.

The Polar Bears improve to 17-9 overall and are 5-3 in the Ohio Athletic Conference after their fifth consecutive victory, while the Quakers fall to 10-16, 1-7.

Junior Logan Stevens (Plain City/Jonathan Alder) smacked a pair of home runs in game one and senior Corey McMann (Flower Mound, Tex./Liberty Christian) hit a home run in game two to lead the home team.

In the opener, Northern scored three runs in the second, one in the fifth and two in the sixth to grab a 6-0 lead.

WC got on the board in the seventh, but the Polar Bears answered with seven runs in the bottom of the inning to lead 13-1.

Stevens ended the first game 2-for-4 with 3 RBI and senior Jacob Wenning (Coldwater) went 3-for-4 with three runs scored for ONU.

Junior Noah Truax (Lewis Center/Bishop Watterson) threw 6.0 shutout innings to pick up the win and improve to 2-0 on the mound.

In the nightcap, Northern scored in each of the first three innings to lead 5-1.

Wilmington added single runs in the fifth and sixth innings to claw back within 5-3.

But the Polar Bears would extend the lead with a pair of unearned runs in the seventh and another in the eighth to push the advantage to 8-3.

Sophomore Blake Altaffer (Montpelier) went 5.2 innings to pick up the win and move to 4-0 on the year and sophomore Blake Peterson (Belle Center/Benjamin Logan) threw the final 3.1 innings to pick up his first save of the season.

Sophomore Hunter Kauser (Paulding) finished the day 5-for-8 with 4 runs scored, 4 RBI and a stolen base for Ohio Northern.

The Polar Bears will return to action on Saturday when they host an OAC doubleheader with John Carroll at 1 p.m.