Baseball sweeps OAC doubleheader at John Carroll 5-3 and 11-4

UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS — The Ohio Northern baseball team swept an Ohio Athletic Conference double header at John Carroll on Saturday afternoon.

ONU won the opener 5-3 and took the nightcap 11-4.

The Basics

• Records: Ohio Northern (12-13 overall, 3-5 OAC), John Carroll (14-9 overall, 5-1 OAC).
• Venue: Schweikert Field - University Heights, Ohio.

Game 1 - W, 5-3

• Northern broke a 3-3 tie in the top of the ninth on back-to-back sacrifice flies by sophomore Chase Armstrong (Louisville, Ky./Trinity) and freshman Kyler Lapp (Hall, Ill.) to grab a 5-3 lead.
• Fifth-year senior Jack Hutchins (Bright, Ind./East Central) struck out 7 and scattered 10 hits in 7.0 innings on the hill.
• Junior Blake Peterson (Belle Center/Benjamin Logan) struck out four of the six batters he faced in two perfect innings of relief to improve to 2-2 on the season.
• Junior Andrew Stechschulte (Findlay), sophomore Robbie Reed (Goshen, Ky./Trinity) and freshman Zane Pratt (Piqua) each had two hits for the Polar Bears.
• JCU out-hit ONU 10-8 in the game.

Game 2 - W, 11-4

• Northern scored four times in the top of the first and twice more in the second to build a quick 6-0 lead.
• A 2-run fifth and a 3-run seventh extended the lead to 11-0 entering the bottom of the ninth.
• Senior Noah Truax (Lewis Center/Bishop Watterson) threw eighth shutout innings, allowing only four hits while striking out eight, to improve to 2-2 on the season on the bump.
• Reed went 3-for-4 with three runs scored and Lapp was 2-for-2 with a home run, two runs scored and 3 RBI.
• ONU out-hit JCU 12-7.

Notables

• Reed finished the day 5-for-8 with 3 runs and 2 RBI, Stechschulte was 4-for-8 with a run and 3 RBI and Lapp was 3-for-7 with a home run, 4 runs and 4 RBI.
• Junior Joey Kennedy (Sterling Heights, Mich./Foley Catholic) leads the team through 24 games with a .431 batting average.
• Junior Sam Sells (Lewis Center/Olentangy Orange) is second in batting at .380.
• Stechschulte and Armstrong each have team-highs of 4 home runs and 26 RBI.
• Ohio Northern is now 32-38-1 all-time against John Carroll, including a 13-23 record at University Heights.
• Ohio Northern is in its 119th season of baseball. The Polar Bears are 1453-1150 all-time, a winning percentage of .558.
• 13th-year head coach Gene Stechschulte is now 265-202 at Ohio Northern for a winning percentage of .567.

Up Next

• The Polar Bears will return to action on Sunday with an OAC double header at Wilmington.