The baseball team brought home its first win against The College of Wooster Fighting Scots since 2008 this Saturday in a 3–1, 14-inning brawl and the first of two games. This game represented one of the brightest moments in Yeomen baseball this season as junior Mike McDonald pitched eight scoreless innings. The Yeomen lost the second game Saturday night in a 2–1 pitching clash against the Fighting Scots.
The Yeomen started the first game with first-year Harrison Wollman on the mound, allowing nine hits and only one run. “I just went about this game as I would any other and I didn’t let the hype that comes with Wooster’s team affect me,” Wollman said.
Oberlin led the Scots 1–0 until the bottom of the sixth, when the Scots knocked in one run to even it up. The Yeomen then brought in reliever McDonald, who struck out 10 Scots on Saturday with a total of 109 pitches, an impressive 79 of which were strikes. “I just took it one inning at a time, trying my best to prevent the Scots from scoring. I was going to pitch until the game ended,” said McDonald.
The game remained scoreless until the 14thinning on both sides as the pitchers battled it out. In the top of the 14th the Yeomen finally broke the hitless streak with a single to center field from junior Sean Cohen. The hit was followed by a sacrifice bunt from first-year Blaise Dolcemaschio that would bring Cohen to second. Senior Robin Witjes stepped up to the plate and hit a massive single up the middle to bring Cohen home, breaking the eight-inning drought.
Witjes would then be brought home by an RBI from sophomore Ryan Bliss to further secure the Yeomen’s monumental win. “What it came down to was situational baseball. We didn’t have as many hits as the Scots, [but] we got hits when they mattered and were able to come up with clutch runs,” said McDonald.
The second game did not have the same extravagant outcome as the first, but was still equally exciting. The Yeomen, still hyped off the thrill of the first game, came out strong and scored the first run of the night in the third inning off of a double into right field by Bliss that would bring sophomore Mitch Novak home. These were the only hits for the Yeomen until the 14th inning.
It was a hard fought game for senior pitcher Eric Knight, who tossed seven innings, allowing only seven hits and two runs. Unfortunately, this wasn’t enough, and the Yeomen walked away with a loss. “It was a pitchers’ duel with good defense that could have gone either way, but we ultimately fell on the short end by just one run,” said Wollman.
Oberlin has two more conference games left and is poised to make a run in the North Coast Athletic Conference East, with a record of 9–7 and high expectations for the playoffs.
