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Tom Fox

The Wittenberg baseball team opened North Coast Athletic Conference West Division play last week and the results were extremely encouraging. After struggling through a 4-12 conference season in 2003, the Tigers won three of four at Wabash over the weekend to move into an early first-place tie with Denison.

The Tigers have a week off from divisional action, and instead turn to five games in the next five days, starting with a game against Capital on Thursday that was rescheduled from March 16. NCAC preseason favorite Wooster comes calling on Saturday for a nonconference doubleheader and Ohio Athletic Conference power Heidelberg makes a visit on Sunday. Then the Tigers hit the road on Monday for a night game at Mount St. Joseph, the last preparation for next weekend's key four-game clash at NCAC West rival Earlham.

Last week, the Tigers started out with a 3-0 loss at nationally ranked Marietta. While Wittenberg was the third straight team to suffer a shutout against the Pioneers, the Tigers did break up a phenomenal 23-inning hitless streak.

At Wabash, the Tigers started out with a split on Saturday, winning the first game 7-2 and losing the nightcap 4-1. Junior Matt Foster (Granville, Ohio/Granville) had a big day in the opener, hitting a two-run homer in the first inning and finishing 3-of-4 with five runs batted in. Junior Ryan Goldschmidt (Ft. Loramie, Ohio/Ft. Loramie) went the distance on the mound, allowing just three hits and no walks. In the second game, the Tigers pitched well again but were undone by a four-run Wabash fifth inning. Offensively, the Tigers managed little besides two hits in three trips to the plate by junior Tom Pickering (Newark, Ohio/Catholic).

On the second day at Wabash, the Tigers came up with the clutch pitching and hitting they needed to produce two big victories. The opener went extra innings as senior Tom Fox (Urbana, Ohio/Urbana) took a no-hitter through the end of the regularly scheduled seven innings. In the eighth, Goldschmidt had an RBI bunt single and sophomore Bret Wiseman (New Richmond, Ohio/New Richmond) added a sacrifice fly to give the Tigers a 2-0 cushion. Fox lost his no-hitter in the bottom of the inning but kept his composure and picked up his second win of the season by getting the final three outs.

Five hitters in the lineup had multi-hit games in the finale as the Tigers rallied from a 5-4 deficit to win 9-5. Goldschmidt led the way with three hits, sophomore K.R. Schlievert (Findlay, Ohio/Findlay) led with two runs batted in and Pickering and Foster scored two runs each.

For his performance, Fox was named NCAC Pitcher of the Week. It was the first such honor in his career.