Owls click on all cylinders against Thiel

FORT PIERCE, Fla. — The Kenyon College baseball team could get used to playing Thiel College. The Owls and Tomcats matched up for the second time at the Bob Gladwin Baseball Complex at Lawnwood, and Kenyon dominated with a 16-3 win to improve to 2-0 against Thiel with a 26-6 run differential.

Overall, the Owls maintained their strong start to the 2023 campaign, improving to 3-1 while sending the Tomcats to a 1-3 mark. The Kenyon offense has scored double-digit runs in all three wins, and the Owls are averaging 11 runs per game through their first four outings.

Like the first game against the Tomcats, Kenyon benefitted from Thiel’s errors. Six errors led to 10 unearned runs, but they counted all the same for the Owls. Kenyon outhit Thiel 18-13, and Owls pitchers attacked the zone early and often as the rotation chalked up 11 strikeouts without a walk.

In his first outing of the year, Frank Lynch struck out six in a four-inning start, allowing two runs on four hits. Sam Richards (1-0) earned the win with three scoreless innings that included three strikeouts and three hits. Jake Davidson sealed the deal by adding two more strikeouts over the final two innings.

Drew Robinson had himself a day at the plate, hitting five singles in five at-bats, notching two RBIs, scoring three runs, and stealing a base for good measure. Kenyon hit .429 at the plate overall, and Malcolm Gaynor (3-4, two runs, two RBIs), Edwin Groff (2-5, one run, one RBI), Tripper Capps (2-3, three runs, two RBIs, one walk), and Stephen Carr (2-3, two walks, one run, one RBI) all had multi-hit games.

The Owls opened up a four-run lead in the bottom of the first inning and never looked back. Thiel cut the advantage to 5-2 after runs in the third and fourth frames, but Kenyon put up seven runs on five hits in the bottom of the fourth to blow the game open. Six of the runs were unearned, and five came with two outs.

Capps crushed Kenyon’s first home run of the spring on the first pitch of the fifth inning, and the Owls added two more runs in the bottom of the sixth to go ahead 15-2. Thiel tacked on a two-out run in the eighth, but sophomore Dustin Lee launched his first collegiate long ball in the bottom of the inning in his first at-bat of the game. The round-tripper was the icing on the cake of Kenyon’s 13-run victory.

The Owls have an off-day before facing Wheaton College (Ill.) (3-4) at 1:30 p.m. on Friday, March 10.