Oilers Blast Seven Home Runs in Game 1 | Split Twinbill at Cedarville
Cedarville, Ohio- The University of Findlay baseball team hit the road for a Great Midwest Athletic Conference (G-MAC) road series with the Cedarville Yellow Jackets on Friday, April 16. The Oilers exploded for a season-high 19 runs in the opener to earn a 19-2 win and then had the script flipped as they took a 10-2 loss in the nightcap. With the split, Findlay is now 10-15 on the year with an 8-10 mark in conference play while the Yellow Jackets move to 11-15 and are also 8-10 in the G-MAC.
The story of the series opener was the long ball as the Oilers clubbed a program record seven home runs in the game. That theme was evident as soon as the game got started as the first batter of the day, sophomore Cole Kwiatkowski went deep over the fence in left field to give the Oilers the lead.
A double by senior Ethan St. Clair, single by senior Austin Rawlins, and hit by pitch to sophomore Nate Brooks loaded the bases. Senior Casey Gould walked to plate the second run and the next batter, senior Ryan O'Malley, flew a ball deep over the wall in left center field for a grand slam to put the Oilers ahead 6-0. In the inning, the Oilers sent ten batters to the plate and scored six runs on five hits. They were not done.
Sophomore Cam Farrar had an RBI single in the second to make the lead 7-0 and then to lead off the third, O'Malley went deep down the left field line for his second homerun in just three innings. Two batters later, Kwiatkowski also blasted a ball over the fence in left for his second of the game to put Findlay ahead 9-0. An RBI single by Brooks and a sacrifice fly by Farrar made the third a four-run inning and gave the Oilers a comfortable 11-0 advantage.
Single runs in the fourth and fifth made that lead 13-0 before Cedarville final got on the board with a single run in the bottom of the fifth.
As they had done all game, Findlay answered with the long ball. This time it was Ethan St. Clair who went deep to left field for a solo homerun.
Leading 15-2 in the eighth, it was Cam Farrar's turn as he hit a two-run blast to left to put Findlay ahead 17-2. In the ninth, senior Tyler Burley got in on the act and hit a two-run bomb of his own to left to plate the Oilers' 18th and 19th runs of the game, cementing the most impressive offensive performance since the Oilers scored 20 runs in a game against Cedarville in the spring of 2019.
The offensive numbers in the opener were staggering. Nate Brooks and Ethan St. Clair each had three hits in the game. Brooks had one RBI and scored three runs while St. Clair finished a triple shy of the cycle and had three runs scored and one RBI.
O'Malley, who had two home runs including a grand slam, finished with two hits, five RBI, and two runs scored while Kwiatkowski had a pair of solo home runs and a walk.
Cam Farrar had two hits including a home run and finished with four RBI and Tyler Burley had one hit, a home run, with two runs scored and two RBI.
Casey Gould finished the game with one hit and two RBI, but reached base three times via the walk leading to a pair of runs scored.
Junior Anthony Kyle got the win on the hill as he tossed seven solid innings, allowing just two runs on seven hits. Kyle struck out a career-high 13 batters in the game and did not walk a batter.
Game two was not so kind to the Oilers who suddenly went quiet offensively.
Cedarville flipped the script and scored single runs in the second and third innings to take a 2-0 lead then added four in the fourth to move to 6-0.
Findlay finally plated single runs in the fifth and sixth, but four more runs in the bottom of the sixth for Cedarville put the game out of reach as the Oilers had just one at-bat remaining in the seven inning affair.
After scoring 19 runs on 16 hits in the opener, Findlay had just two runs on five hits in the second contest and, after seven home runs were blasted in the opener, the only extra base hit of the nightcap was a sixth inning RBI double off the bat of Ryan O'Malley.
Junior Ryan Mohr took the loss on the hill and fell to 1-4 on the year after throwing 5.1 innings and allowing ten runs, all earned, on nine hits. He walked three and struck out seven.
The four-game series will conclude with a doubleheader tomorrow, Saturday, April 17 with the first game, a seven inning game, starting at noon. The finale will be a nine inning game and will start at approximately 4:00 pm.