By Kevin Pan
Last weekend, the Lords baseball team played a tough series against conference opponent the College of Wooster. The Lords entered the series 11-3, but dropped the first two games 6-11 and 3-11 on Friday, March 29. They bounced back the next day, however, taking the first game 9-1 before letting a lead go late in the second game in a 3-5 loss.
“We were right there with Wooster the whole weekend, and I think we have just as much, if not more talent, on our team than they do,” Nate Lotze ’14 said. “Although we would have liked to win the series, the weekend was good for us because it highlighted some areas we need to continue developing, and provided our younger guys with valuable experience that will help them in big spots throughout the rest of the season. On Friday, we got a decent amount of offense but just allowed a couple big innings that put things out of reach.”
In the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader, Josh Jacobvitz ’15 pitched a gem. He threw a complete game one-hitter, striking out four batters en route to his second victory of the year. Kyle Hardacker ’15 and Sam Gillespie ’16 finished out the game with two RBIs each.
“I thought we played much better on Saturday. Jacobvitz and [Michael] Jeffers [’15] both pitched tremendous games, and unfortunately we couldn’t execute enough towards the end of the second game to pull out the win,” Lotze said. “The fan support was tremendous, and it was exciting to have a big home crowd like that. Hopefully people will come down to the field for our remaining home series.”
The second game was a duel between both starting pitchers. The Lords led 1-0 going into the eighth inning, but the Scots rallied and won 3-5. Lords’ pitcher Jeffers went seven innings, giving up three hits and only one run. He also recorded a career-high seven strikeouts. After he departed in the eighth inning, however, the Scots managed to tie the game. The Scots had a 3-1 lead after the inning, but the Lords fought back and tied the game back up. Wooster reclaimed the lead in the top of the ninth, and in the bottom half of the inning the Lords were unable to reclaim the lead despite getting runners on first and second with nobody out.
“Our goal is to improve each weekend and put ourselves in position to host the first round of playoffs, and then advance to [the playoffs], where anything can happen,” Lotze said. “We want to be playing our best baseball at the end of the season when it counts the most. We have a special group of guys, and as long as we keep working we have the chance to accomplish some big things.”
The Lords are 1-3 in conference play and 12-6 overall. They travel to Oberlin College this weekend to take on the Yeomen in a four-game conference series.
[starbox id=”kevin_pan”]