The No. RV Ashland University baseball team went 1-1 in the middle games of the four-game Great Midwest Athletic Conference series at Hillsdale on Friday (May 2) – winning 6-4 in eight innings and losing 5-3.
With one regular-season game remaining, the Eagles are 34-15 overall and 23-8 in the league, and the Chargers are 24-25, 17-14. Ashland is 1½ games behind first-place Northwood in the North Division.
The Game 1 victory moved Ashland head coach
John Schaly into a tie for 20
th place on the NCAA all-time all-levels baseball wins list with 1,348. Schaly tied Oklahoma Baptist's Bobby Cox on that list.
In the opener, the Chargers scored first in the first, but the Eagles rallied to make it 1-1 in the second on an RBI fielder's choice from junior second baseman
Gavin Dobbels.
Hillsdale posted a run in the fourth to regain the lead at 2-1, but the back and forth continued in the fifth when junior shortstop
Collin Overholt delivered an RBI single. Ashland then moved ahead for the first time in the sixth on a bases-loaded walk from freshman center fielder
Sean Krueckeberg and a run-scoring fielder's choice off the bat of graduate left fielder
Max Caron.
The Chargers, however, scored twice in the sixth for the game's third tie at 4-4.
Going to extra innings, the Eagles scored the eventual game-winning runs the eighth on a Krueckeberg RBI fielder's choice and a Caron RBI double.
Game 2 saw Caron lift a sacrifice fly in the first inning to put AU on top first, but Hillsdale came back with a four-spot in the second. Junior first baseman
Sam Witt, the reigning North Division Player of the Week, hit a two-run home run, his sixth of the season, in the fifth to get the Eagles closer at 4-3.
The Chargers, however, got a run back in the fifth for the final margin of victory.
SMITH EARNS A RELIEF W…AND THE REST OF THE STORY
- Junior right-handed pitcher David Smith (2-0) pitched the last 2 1/3 innings of Game 1, allowing no runs, two hits and no walks and striking out two.
- Krueckeberg and Caron each drove in two runs, and junior right fielder Billy Howard, Caron and freshman designated hitter Gage Weaver each collected two hits.
- Witt finished 2-for-4 with the homer, two RBIs and a run scored in the nightcap, and Krueckeberg and Dobbels each added two hits.
- Graduate lefty Marshall Leishman (6-4) yielded five hits, four runs and a walk and struck out five in four innings.
UP NEXT
The regular-season finale on Saturday (May 3) at noon.
