TIFFIN, Ohio — Marietta College used a four-run seventh inning rally to come from behind and defeat No. 5 ranked Baldwin Wallace University 7-5 Thursday (May 7) afternoon in the first round of the Ohio Athletic Conference Baseball Tournament. The Pioneers improve to 25-15 on the season, while Baldwin Wallace slips to 31-9 overall.
The Etta Express advances into the winner's bracket and will face top-seeded and No. 9 ranked Heidelberg University on Friday at 9:30 a.m. The Student Princes downed John Carroll 8-1 to open the tournament.
Baldwin Wallace jumped on Pioneer ace
Christian Herstine (Beaver, Pa./Beaver Area) for two runs in the first inning. A pair of Pioneers errors aided the Yellow Jacket rally.
Senior
Chris Winpigler (Frederick, Md./Tuscarora) cut the deficit in half with a solo home run over the leftfield wall in the second. The Pioneers plated two more in the third for a 3-2 lead.
Mitch Geers (West Chester/Lakota East) led off with a double and then scored on an RBI-single from
Ryan Hanahan (Gibsonia, Pa./Pine-Richland), who would eventually score on a sac fly from
Chris Petrucci (Farmington, W.Va./Notre Dame).
Herstine allowed another unearned run in the fifth to knot the score at 3-3. Herstine worked 6.0 innings and allowed three runs, one earned, on five base hits. He walked three and struck out three.
Freshman
Ian Luttrell (River Forest, Ill./Oak Park River Forest) (4-0) tossed 3.0 innings of strong relief for the win. He gave up two runs on four hits and walked one.
Trailing 4-3 heading into the home half of the seventh inning, the Etta Express sent 10 hitters to the plate turning the one-run deficit into a three-run lead. Hanahan had his second run-scoring single and
Brandon Papp (Uniontown/Green) smacked a two-run, two-out double.
The Yellow Jackets tried to rally in the ninth scoring one run before Luttrell closed the door. With the tying run at the plate, Luttrell got the BW cleanup hitter to pop up and then induced a game ending ground out.
Winpigler led the Pioneer offense going 3-for-4 with a double, a home run and two runs scored. Hanahan finished with two hits and two RBI, while Geers had a pair of base hits including a double.
Mark Zimmerman started on the mound for the Yellow Jackets and threw 4.0 innings. He allowed three runs on three hits with five walks and five strikeouts. Logan Heffernan (4-2) took the loss after giving up two runs on two hits in 2.1 innings of work.
Fans can follow the Etta Express all season long at
pioneers.marietta.edu. You can also follow the Pioneers on Facebook at
facebook.com/MariettaCollege and @MariettaPioneer on Twitter and Instagram.
