Oilers Drop First Two in Last Series of Regular Season
Columbus, OH- The University of Findlay baseball team traveled to Columbus to take on the Ohio Dominican University (ODU) Panthers in their final series of the regular season. Due to weather the games were moved to Sunday May 8-9. Findlay would come into the series fighting for the final G-MAC postseason spot, coming in .5 games up on the Walsh University Cavaliers.
Findlay would break open the scoring in the top of the 4th inning with a solo homerun off the bat of junior Aiden Lao.
The Panthers tied the game back up in the bottom of the inning with a single run of their own.
The Oilers would put up another 3 runs in the 5th inning. Freshmen Jabin Bates would start off the scoring with an RBI hit by pitch that scored sophomore Andrew Micale. Junior Cam Farrar would follow that up with an RBI single to shortstop to score fellow junior Nolan O'Connell. Senior Ryan O'Malley would drive in the final run of the inning with an RBI single to third base to bring Lao around to score.
ODU would put up a second run in the 6th inning with an RBI single to bring the score to 4-2.
Bates would single through the left side in the top of the 7th inning to allow senior Alex Foulks to score. Senior Tyler Burley would draw an RBI walk to score Bates later in the inning to give the Oilers a 6-2 lead.
ODU would put up a 5-run 8th inning with a string of hits to give them a 7-6 lead going into the 9th.
Sophmore Andrew Micale would put the Oilers ahead with an RBI hit by pitch that allowed Farrar to cross the plate. Later in the inning, O'Connell would drive home Burley with an RBI single to give the Oilers a 2-run lead.
The Panthers would tie the game up in the bottom of the 9th to force the game into extra innings.
No team would score as they battled into the 12th inning.
The Panthers would walk off game one with an RBI single up the middle to give them the 9-8 victory.
Senior Anothy Kyle would start on the mound and throw 5 innings allowing only one earned run and striking out 6 of the 19 batters he faced. Senior Gavin Bailey would come in to throw the next 2.1 innings, allowing 3 earned runs and striking out 4 batters. Freshmen Jacob Flaherty would throw next for Findlay, allowing 3 earned runs and recording 5 strikeouts in 4.1 innings of work.
Findlay started game two off in the 3rd inning with an RBI single from O'Connell to score Bates.
ODU would respond with 3 runs of their own in the bottom of the inning to give them a 3-1 lead.
Burley would drive in Brooks in the 4th inning to bring the game back to within two runs.
An RBI single in the bottom of the 4th would extend the Panthers lead back to 3.
An RBI walk from Foulks would bring Brooks around to score in the top of the 6th inning. Later in the inning Micale would score on an RBI single from Lao to bring the game back to within one run.
ODU would extend their lead to 2 in the bottom of the 6th with another RBI single to give them a 6-4 lead.
Senior Bailey McCord started on the mound for the Oilers and would throw 5.2 innings allowing 6 earned runs in the loss. Junior Sebastian Jones would finish the game on the mound allowing no earned runs in .1 innings.
With the two losses, Findlay drops to 17-30 on the season and 12-16 in the conference. The Oilers will be back on the diamond to finish the final two games of the series on May 9.