Early Bird Gets the Worm | Oilers Sweep on Day Two
Canton, Ohio- The University of Findlay Baseball team continued their series with the Malone University Pioneers on Monday Mar 21st in Canton, Ohio. The teams would play games three (7 innings) and four (9 innings) after splitting games one and two the day prior.
Game One (W 6-2)
Malone started day two off with a single run in both the first and second inning to give them a 2-0 lead.
The game would be fairly quiet after that with neither team getting much going until the Oilers put up a big three runs in the top of the fifth inning. Senior Alex Folks scored the first run for the Oilers when on a sac bunt from junior Aiden Lao who would reach on a throwing error. Lao would come around to score on a 1 out RBI double off the bat of senior Ryan O'Malley. Two batters later, freshmen Jabin Bates would score on a sacrifice fly to left field by junior Nate Brooks to give Findlay a 3-2 lead.
Findlay would pile on the runs in the top of the 7th inning with a two-run homerun by junior
Cam Farrar that would score O'Malley, who reached on a walk. Sophomore Andrew Micale would later triple with two outs to bring Brooks around to score giving Findlay a 6-2 lead.
Senior Jordan Bekier started on the mound for Findlay and would throw all 7 innings and pick up his 3rd win of the season. In the win Bekier allowed only 2 earned runs on5 hits while striking out 7 Pioneers.
Game Two (W 12-10)
Findlay continued to roll to start the second game by scoring one run in the top of the 1st inning when Aiden Lao scored to give Findlay a quick 1-0 lead.
Malone would respond and take the lead in the bottom of the second scoring two runs of a couple hits and an error.
Findlay would take the lead back in the top of the 4th inning. Cam Farrar would start the scoring after hitting a one out single earlier in the inning. Later in the inning sophomore Derek Fay would hit an RBI single to bring in Brooks. Senior Christian Orr would follow that up with a two RBI single of his own to plate sophomore Andrew Micale and Fay. Lao would join in on the hit parade with another RBI single to score Orr. Lao would come around to score later on yet another RBI single by freshmen Jabin Bates. To round off the inning, both O'Malley and Farrar would hit RBI triples scoring Bates and O'Malley respectively.
Malone would respond with five runs of their own in the bottom of the 4th to bring the score back to 9-7 in favor of Findlay.
The game would sit at that score until Malone put up two runs to tie the game in the bottom of the 6th inning at 9 a piece.
Findlay would take back the lead in the top of the 7th inning when a bases-loaded walk drawn by Orr would bring Brooks in to score Findlay's 10th run of the contest.
A double in the top of the 8th inning by Brooks would bring Lao and Farrar around to score and give Findlay a late 12-9 lead.
Malone would scratch one run across in the bottom of the 8th, but the Oilers offense would be too much as Findlay would go to win the game 12-10.
Senior Ryan Mohr started on the mound for the Oilers and would throw 3 innings allowing 5 runs and striking out two batters. Senior Gavin Bailey would come in later in the game without allowing a hit and striking out one batter while picking up the win. Freshmen Ashton Schroeder would get the save while not allowing a hit and striking out 2 batters.
With the day two sweep the Oilers advance to 9-14 on the season and 5-3 in G-MAC play. They will be back on the diamond on Tuesday Mar 22 as they take on Wayne State University at The Cube, first pitch slated for 3PM.