No. 9 Scots at Muskies, Then Look to Clinch NCAC East Division

Matthew Johnson

The College of Wooster, which dropped six spots to No. 9 in the latest D3baseball.com/ National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association top-25 poll, will attempt to wrap up its eighth-straight North Coast Athletic Conference East Division title. First, the Fighting Scots are heading to Muskingum College (12-12) Thursday, April 17, for a nine-inning, non-conference game, with opening pitch slated for 4 p.m. Please note that it was originally scheduled to be played on Monday, but has already been postponed. Wooster took two regular season games from Muskingum in 2006 (16-1 and 6-2), but they didn’t meet last year. On Saturday and Sunday, April 19-20, the Scots will host Hiram College (6-13, 2-6 NCAC) for seven-inning doubleheaders, starting at 1 p.m. each day. Entering the week, Wooster only needs to win one of the four games in order to clinch the division as well as home-field advantage for an NCAC Tournament semifinal series May 3-4. The Scots have had Hiram’s number of late, sweeping four-game sets from the Terriers the last three seasons by combined scores of 69-8 (2007), 46-16 (2006), and 33-0 (2005).

Last Week: Wooster uncharacteristically lost two of three games, as its record slipped to 26-5.

On April 8, the Scots bolted out to early leads of 3-0 and 4-1, but could not sustain them against NCAA Div. I Kent State University as the host Golden Flashes used an eight-run sixth inning to pull away to a 15-4 win at Schoonover Stadium in Kent, Ohio. During the top of the second, catcher Shane Swearingen (Hilliard, Ohio / Bishop Watterson), who had thrown out a runner attempting to steal second in the previous frame, singled with one out. Next, Matthew Johnson (Orrville, Ohio / Orrville) doubled down the right-field line, with Swearingen scoring when the outfielder couldn’t find the handle. One out later, Jake Sankal (Mentor, Ohio / Mentor) tripled to center, which brought Johnson home, and he scored when Matthew Pierce (Oklahoma City, Okla. / Casady School) followed by hustling his way to an infield single. Trailing 3-0, Kent State took advantage of an error to get one run back in the bottom of the second inning. Pat Christensen (Cincinnati, Ohio / Sycamore) led off the third with a double and eventually scored on a fielder’s choice by Johnson, putting Wooster’s lead back to three. The Golden Flashes’ first four batters in the home-half of the third all reached safely, scoring one run with just one base hit. That brought Adam Samson (Orrville, Ohio / Orrville) into the game out of the bullpen, and following a leadoff walk, he got the next three out, one being a sacrifice fly, which tied the game 4-4. Kent State took the lead for the first time with a pair of fourth-inning runs off Samson, however, the Scots remained within striking distance until that eight-run sixth. Samson, a senior, lost for the first time since the 2006 NCAA Div. III Mideast Regional Tournament, as he yielded two runs during 2.2 innings of work against the Golden Flashes. Offensively, Sankal led all players with a 3-for-4 outing, highlighted by the RBI triple. He also walked once and stole a base, while Sean Karpen (Venetia, Pa. / Peters Twp.) and Swearingen each went 2-for-4 with a walk.

On April 12, Anthony Trapuzzano (Pittsburgh, Pa. / Canevin Catholic) lost a regular season game for the first time in his Wooster pitching career, as the Scots fell to Denison University by a 6-3 score at Granville, Ohio. Trapuzzano, a junior right-hander, had been 22-0 in regular season games entering the game. Wooster’s offense got to Denison’s starter for the first and only time during the top of the fourth, when Karpen and Stu Beath (St. Louis, Mo. / Avon Old Farms – Conn.) doubled back-to-back. Christensen kept the rally going with a base knock and then Beath scored on a fielder’s choice to tie the game 2-2. The Big Red took advantage of a Scot error in the bottom of the fifth, converting it into an unearned run, and later, they added three insurance tallies during the seventh for a 6-2 lead. Wooster pulled within three during the ninth on a Matt Groezinger (Upper Arlington, Ohio / Upper Arlington) RBI single, but it was never able to bring the tying run to the plate. Trapuzzano was effective for the most part, but the three-run seventh hurt his stat line, as he wound up allowing five earned runs on 10 hits and two walks in seven innings. Offensively for the Scots, Karpen went 3-for-4 to move his season batting average to an even .500 (51-for-102), while Beath contributed a 2-for-4 performance in the clean-up spot.

On April 13, Wooster came back from a 3-0 deficit, scoring two in the fifth inning, one in the sixth, and one in the seventh, and then turned the game over to Mark Miller (Convoy, Ohio / Crestview), who pitched a perfect eighth and ninth for his 11th save of the spring, as the Scots defeated Denison 4-3 for a weekend split between the two, with each winning on its home field. The Big Red got off to a good start with single runs in the second, fourth, and fifth innings, however, they were unable to convert other scoring opportunities, with Wooster throwing two runners out at home, one on a pickoff and one on a fielder’s choice and stranding six runners on base during that stretch. In the bottom of the fifth, the Scots loaded the bases via a Dan Skulina (Hinckley, Ohio / Walsh Jesuit) base knock and walks to Bubba O’Donnell (Cincinnati, Ohio / St. Xavier) and Karpen. Then, Beath dropped a one-out single to the opposite field, bringing home both Skulina and O’Donnell. Wooster would tie it up in the sixth, when Skulina and Swearingen earned back-to-back, two-out walks and O’Donnell followed by delivering an RBI single to center. The Scots again came up with a clutch hit in the seventh, this time off the bat of Groezinger, who had a two-out single through the left side that brought in Beath, who had earlier pulled a single to right. Miller then closed out Denison, inducing four routine infield grounders, striking out one, and getting another on a liner to centerfield. Matt DeGrand (Stow, Ohio / St. Vincent-St. Mary), who faced just three batters in the seventh, picked up the win to improve to 3-0, while Matt Barnes (Pittsburgh, Pa. / Langley) was effective through the first six innings. Barnes gave up the three runs on six hits and three walks, while striking out a season-high eight. Beath and O’Donnell paced the Wooster offense, going 2-for-4 with two RBI and 2-for-3 with an RBI and a walk, respectively.