By Kevin Pan
The Lords traveled to Oberlin College for a four-game conference series last weekend, and though they demolished the Yeomen by scores of 17-3 and 12-7 on day one, they lost both games on the second day, 9-10 and 2-12.
It was disappointing to split with Oberlin, Nate Lotze 14 said. We came out and played well on Saturday, but on Sunday we werent able to get the job done. We made some key mistakes on defense, and our pitching couldnt keep them off the board.
In the first days doubleheader, the Lords combined for 29 runs and 32 hits against the Yeomen. In the first game, the Lords trounced the Yeomen by a score of 17-3. Tyler Dierke 13 pitched his first complete game of the season, allowing only two earned runs and striking out six batters. On the offensive side, the Lords exploded for 14 hits and 4 runs in the first three innings alone.
The second game did not give the Yeomen a fresh start. The Lords were 6-0 after the third inning. Jesse Weiss 13 hit his third home run of the season, while on the mound Spencer Byers 16 pitched his fourth quality start of the year and earned his third win of the season. Lotze and John Nahra 16 each went 5-8 in the two games, combining for seven RBIs and 10 runs scored.
The second day was a different story for the Lords. In game one, the Yeomen scraped out a 10-9 victory, though the Lords Kyle Hardacker 15 hit his second home run of the season.
In the second game, the Yeomen came out with a decisive 12-2 victory. Mike Jeffers 15 pitched well in the first few innings of the game, but the Yeomen scored seven runs in the bottom of the eighth inning to pull away. The Lords fell to 14-8 overall and 3-5 in the North Coast Athletic Conference after the series.
The Lords still have big upcoming games that they can use to bounce back from this weekend. They are scheduled to play Wittenberg University in a home doubleheader on Saturday, April 13, with games at 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. They then travel to Wittenberg the next day for another pair of games. Lotze said the team is hoping to get back on track this weekend.
Against Wittenberg our expectations will be to fix some of the issues we had against Oberlin: we need to get some quality innings from our pitching staff, play solid defense and come up with hits with runners on base, Lotze said.
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