WMVO Good Times Great Oldies
DELAWARE, Ohio — With the wind blowing out, the Kenyon College baseball team took full advantage in the batters’ box, where it cranked out a combined 31 hits, including eight home runs, during Thursday’s doubleheader sweep of the host Battling Bishops of Ohio Wesleyan University.
Kenyon took game one 11-9 and then completed the sweep with a seven-inning, run-rule 21-6 victory in the second game of the twinbill. Those results improved the Lords’ records to 15-6 overall and 4-0 within North Coast Athletic Conference play. The two losses dropped Ohio Wesleyan to 6-15 overall and 1-3 in the NCAC.
Game one featured a trio of home runs off Kenyon bats. The first was struck in the top of the third inning with the Lords holding a 3-2 lead. With two outs, first-year Luke Meister ripped a home run to center, his fourth of the year and fourth in his last four games.
The teams traded runs in the next half innings, but Kenyon put together a five-run fifth inning to take a 10-3 advantage. In that inning, senior Alex Gow slugged a solo shot, his fourth of the season. Will Sturgeon and Drew Robinson also produced an RBI and Alexander Hoskins capped off the inning with a two-run double to left center.
Kenyon’s big lead wasn’t safe, however. Ohio Wesleyan put up two in the bottom of the fifth and four more in the bottom of the six to pull within one run.
In the top of the eighth, Stephen Carr pinch-hit for Hoskins and tagged the Lords’ third home run of the day, a solo shot that made the score 11-9 in favor of Kenyon.
Sam Richards, who took the mound in relief for Kenyon, held Ohio Wesleyan at bay in the seventh and eighth innings to earn the win. Joel Biery then closed the door in the ninth, picking up his fourth save of the campaign.
Paced by Carr, the Kenyon bats didn’t let up in game two. Carr belted a three-run home run in the second inning and then a two-run shot in the third. That gave him home runs in three consecutive at-bats, over the two games, and pushed the Lords to a 6-3 lead.
Before Carr’s third home run, Gow rang up a three-run homer in the second inning. After Carr’s third home run, Hoskins launched a two-run long ball to make the lead 8-3.
Ohio Wesleyan returned fire with two more homers in the bottom of the third, but getting the score to 8-5 would be as close as the Battling Bishops would get the rest of the way.
Tripper Capps slugged Kenyon’s fifth and final home run of the day. It was another three-run shot over the left field fence for his third on the season.
Kenyon finished the game with three runs in the fourth, fourth in the fifth and six more runs in the seventh to end things early.
Noah Rosenberg, who pitched the final four innings of the game and held Ohio Wesleyan scoreless, was credited with the win.
When the smoke cleared, Capps, Carr, Meister and Robinson all had four hits on the day. Malcolm Gaynor had five and Sturgeon had three. Capps scored six times, Gow scored five. Carr had seven RBI and Capps had six.
