WMVO Good Times Great Oldies
OBERLIN, Ohio — The Kenyon College baseball team used some heavy hitting Wednesday to break out of a brief five-game slump and record a North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) doubleheader sweep at Oberlin College. The Owls coasted in a 12-3 game-one win and then followed up with a 5-3 victory in game two.
The sweep improved Kenyon to 15-10 overall and 3-5 in NCAC competition. The losses dropped Oberlin to 9-16 overall and 2-6 in conference games.
The offensive onslaught started in the first inning of game one, as the Owls stuck a four on the scoreboard. Run-scoring hits in the inning were produced by Tripper Capps, Stephen Carr, Ben Zimmerman, and Nate Rosen.
Oberlin got one of those runs back in the bottom of the second inning off Kenyon starter Theo Canning, however, the Kenyon offense responded with a string of runs that overwhelmed Oberlin and its starting pitcher Jay Aghanya. The Owls scored one in the third and two more in the fourth, chasing Aghanya from the game.
The Yeomen duplicated the Owls’ two-run fourth, but Kenyon charged back with three in the fifth and one more run in both the sixth and seventh innings. In the fifth, Dustin Lee ripped a two-run double and Zimmerman tacked on another RBI single.
In all, the Owls racked up 16 hits in game one, while also benefiting from eight walks and four hit batters. Kenyon, which had one more hit batter in game two, now has 58 on the season. That breaks the previous team single-season record of 55 hit batters during the 2009 season.
When the bats weren’t taken out of their hands, the Owls saw Capps amass four hits, Dwyer three, and Carr, Zimmerman, and Edwin Groff two apiece. Capps, Lee, Dwyer, and Zimmerman all posted two RBI, while Malcolm Gaynor, Groff, Capps, and Dwyer each scored twice.
Back on the bump, Canning went six innings and allowed just three runs, two earned, on four hits and four walks. He fanned five batters before giving way to Sam Howell, who pitched effectively over the final three innings to chalk up a save. Howell yielded just two hits and struck out one.
In game two, the quantity of hits was not the same for the Owls, but the quality, especially from Gaynor, jumped up a level. At the top of the order, Gaynor went 1-for-4 with a run scored and four RBI. His three-run home run in the top of the second inning proved to be the difference in the game.
In the sixth inning, Kenyon tallied one more when Zimmerman got aboard via an Oberlin error and was sacrificed to second. He then advanced to third on a wild pitch and Gaynor plated him with an RBI fielder’s choice. The Owls’ other run scored on a wild pitch back in the first inning.
Dwyer had the only multi-hit game for the Owls in the nightcap. He finished the two-game set a combined 5-for-8 with two runs and two RBI.
Lewis Cropper was Kenyon’s game-two starter and he nearly logged a complete game. In his first eight innings of work, he gave up just one run on seven hits. He walked one and struck out three. Cropper ran out of gas in the ninth, however, yielding two more runs on three hits, but Sam Richards came in to close the door and chalk up another Kenyon save.
