Titans Split Friday Games With Eagles In Ranked Battle
OSHKOSH, Wis.- The No. 16 nationally ranked UW-Oshkosh baseball team (23-7, 14-4 WIAC) split the first two games of a four-game series against No. 18 UW-La Crosse (23-7, 14-4 WIAC) on Friday afternoon.
Game One Recap
The starters for the first game were Oshkosh's Connor Brinkman and La Crosse's Isaiah Katz.
Oshkosh struck first when Matt Scherrman sent Jake Surane home on a groundout to shortstop in the bottom of the first inning.
Two Eagles scored in the top of the second, both on George Seaman's double to center field.
Anthony Vivian, the WIAC home run leader (14), extended UWL's lead to 3-1 in the top of the third with a solo home run to right field.
Scherrman responded in the bottom of the third, hitting his own solo home run to left field.
Mac Born hit the third solo home run of the day in the top of the sixth and Logan Pye recorded an RBI with a sacrifice fly to center field.
The Eagles made the score 8-2 in the top of the ninth with three RBI singles.
Surane went two-for-three with a run scored and Scherrman went one-for-four with two RBI and a run scored.
Katz (4-0) earned the win with 8.0 innings pitched, giving up two runs on seven hits and two walks with two strikeouts. In 8.0 innings of work, Brinkman (7-1) was assigned the loss. He allowed five runs on nine hits and a walk, while striking out five.
Game Two Recap
Connor Walters faced off against La Crosse's Owen Anderson in the second game.
Scherrman sent in the first run of the second game as well, doubling to center and scoring Ethan Schreier.
Both teams scored in the second inning. Tim Urlaub hit a sacrifice fly to left field and Schreier grounded out to second, sending Chase Marsh home.
Again in the third, both teams scored. Jack Moran scored on a wild pitch in the top half of the inning and Nicholas Shiu hit a triple to the right field corner, scoring on a throwing error by mac Born.
UWO scored another run in the bottom of the fifth when Mason Kirchberg hit his team-leading eighth home run of the year over the left field fence, recording three RBI.
Zach Taylor singled up the middle in the bottom of the seventh inning, scoring Scherrman and making the score 7-2. Jake Andersen followed with a single to center field that sent Taylor home.
In the top of the eighth, the Eagles scored their third run when Ty Hamilton singled down the left field line, sending in a run. The Titans scored five in the bottom of the eighth to run rule La Crosse. Taylor and Marsh each recorded two RBI singles.
Taylor and Kirchberg each recorded three RBI in the second game; Taylor went three-for-five and scored three runs and Kirchberg went one-for-three with a walk and scored two runs.
Walters (2-0) earned his second win with 7.2 innings of work, allowing three runs on 10 hits and a walk while striking out one. King pitched his third save of the season with 0.1 innings pitched and striking out one. Anderson (3-4) allowed six runs (five earned) on six hits and four walks with four strikeouts in the loss.
Looking Forward
The Titans will wrap up the series Saturday (April 29) at Tiedemann Field with the first game set for noon.