WMVO Good Times Great Oldies
FORT PIERCE, Fla. — With two more wins Thursday, the Kenyon College baseball team finished off its spring break schedule with a superb 12-3 record. The Owls defeated Western Connecticut State by scores of 8-2 and 6-1 at the Lawnwood Complex to cap off the trip with eight wins in their last nine games.
Throughout the doubleheader, the Owls got stellar pitching. A group of four hurlers held the Wolves to a combined three runs on 14 hits and one walk. The foursome also chalked up a total of 20 strikeouts in 14 innings of work.
Junior southpaw Frank Lynch got the game-one start and improved his season record to 3-0 after going four innings, allowing one earned run and fanning six batters. First-year Peyton Hodges came on in the fifth inning and picked up right where Lynch left off. Hodges tossed three innings of one-run ball. He struck out seven and picked up his first collegiate save.
In game two, the Kenyon combo on the mound was starter Jackson Niedel and reliever Noah Rosenberg. Niedel put in a little more than five innings of work. He gave up eight hits and a walk, but fanned three and only allowed one run. Rosenberg worked Kenyon out of a jam in the sixth inning and nailed down the final five outs of the game, four by strikeout. The save was the third of his career.
Kenyon’s offense got rolling with five runs in the top of the third inning of game one. Stephen Carr, Ben Zimmerman, Nate Rosen and Drew Robinson all had run-scoring hits in the inning. Kenyon’s other three runs were scored in the top of the sixth inning. A double from Ben Nash scored Malcolm Gaynor and a single from Tripper Capps scored both Nash and Edwin Groff.
In the second inning of game two, the Owls jumped out to a 1-0 lead after getting a gift run that developed off a hit-by-pitch, an error and a wild pitch. In the bottom of the fourth, things transpired a little more conventionally as Capps doubled and Ben Resnick singled him home. Two batters later, the bases were loaded and a Robinson fielder’s choice scored one more for the Owls, who also capitalized on a Wolves error on the play to move ahead 4-0.
Single runs were then scored in the fifth and sixth innings, as the Owls secured the game and the doubleheader sweep.
Overall, Capps led the way at the plate, going 4-for-6 in the two-game set with two RBI and three runs scored. Zimmerman had two hits and scored twice, while Rosen had two hits and scored once.
The Owls return home and get a short break before traveling to Marietta College on Wednesday to face the No. 18-ranked Pioneers in a single, nine-inning game.
