Baseball battles but drops doubleheader at Heidelberg

By Wes Mayberry

TIFFIN — The Ohio Northern baseball team closed out its Ohio Athletic Conference schedule Saturday with a tightly contested doubleheader against Heidelberg, falling 6-3 and 1-0 at Peaceful Valley.

The Polar Bears fall to 26-13 overall and 12-6 in the OAC, and the Student Princes improve to 19-21, 7-11.

Northern entered play Saturday having already clinched a spot in next week's OAC Tournament as the No. 3 seed. The four-team tournament will be held May 11-13 at regular-season champion Baldwin Wallace and will also include No. 2 seed Marietta and No. 4 seed John Carroll.

The second game of Saturday's doubleheader was scoreless through regulation and needed 13 innings to decide.

Senior Jack Hutchins (Bright, Ind./East Central) got the pitching start for ONU and threw seven scoreless innings while giving up just four hits and three walks to go with six strikeouts.

Sophomore Blake Peterson (Belle Center/Benjamin Logan) pitched five scoreless innings in relief, allowing one hit and three walks and striking out three.

For HU, Corbin Caplan pitched nine scoreless frames, giving up four hits and one walk while recording four strikeouts.

Zane Mirgon and Corey Brafford pitched the final four innings of the combined shutout.

The Student Princes out-hit ONU 6-5 in the game, and the sixth hit proved to be the dagger in the form of Camden Farley's walk-off home run to lead off the bottom of the 13th inning.

Senior Jacob Wenning (Coldwater) and sophomore Andrew Stechschulte (Findlay) paced the ONU offense with two hits apiece. Stechschulte had Northern's lone extra-base hit of the game in the form of a third-inning triple.

In Game 1, a pair of Heidelberg home runs, including a first-inning grand slam from Cort Kramer, sparked the Student Princes to the 6-3 victory.

ONU freshman Chase Armstrong (Louisville, Ky./Trinity) hit his team-leading ninth home run of the season in the top of the second inning, but Orion Kroah answered with a solo shot of his own in the bottom of the frame to put HU up 6-1.

The Polar Bears tried to rally in the top of the ninth after senior Nate Webb (Bath, Ind./Union County) hit a leadoff double. Armstrong followed with an RBI double, and freshman Robbie Reed (Goshen, Ky./Trinity) later added a two-out RBI single to cut the deficit to 6-3 before pitcher Ty Kirk induced a game-ending groundout.

ONU junior Noah Truax (Lewis Center/Bishop Watterson) pitched five shutout innings and allowed just one hit and three walks while striking out three in relief of senior starter Tim Knapschaefer (Maria Stein/Marion Local).

HU starter Jackson Powers improved to 6-4 on the season after giving up one run on four hits and four walks while striking out three over eight innings.

ONU out-hit HU 7-5 in the game with Armstrong leading the way with two hits, two RBIs and two runs scored.