SPRINGFIELD, Ohio - The Wittenberg Tigers kicked off the home portion of the 2014 schedule with a 12-0 loss to Capital.

Wittenberg dropped to 3-6 on the season after playing its first eight games in Florida during the university's annual Spring Break. Capital improved to 9-4.

The Crusaders jumped on top in the first inning and never looked back, piling up 12 runs on 12 hits while a pair of Capital pitchers held the Tigers to just two hits in the shutout loss. Capital scored one run in the first inning, broke the game open with four runs in the third, and then added seven more runs between the fourth and seventh frames.

Wittenberg was unable to muster anything resembling a response against Robert Fravel and Derek Colston, each of whom allowed just one hit while combining to strike out five Tigers. The only breakthroughs came off the bats of senior Tyler Grau (Cincinnati, Ohio/Moeller), who doubled in the third, and sophomore Preston Snodgrass (South Charleston, Ohio/Southeastern), who had a pinch-hit single in the ninth.

Seven different Wittenberg pitchers took the mound. The most effective were the last two as freshman Jon Ellerbrock (Tipp City, Ohio/Bethel) and sophomore Seth Parrish (Indianapolis, Ind./North Central) tossed a scoreless frame.