The Wittenberg baseball team is off to a solid start to the 2004 season, winning six of the first nine games while in Port Charlotte, Fla., before returning to two postponed games. The "northern" portion of the schedule opened on Sunday with a 17-3 victory over local rival Urbana.
In the win over Urbana, junior righthanded pitcher Ryan Goldschmidt (Fort Loramie, Ohio/Fort Loramie) won his second game of the season. He was backed by an offensive barrage that included three hits apiece by sophomore K.R. Schlievert (Findlay, Ohio/Findlay) and junior Matt Foster (Granville, Ohio/Granville) multi-RBI games by freshman Jason Hutson (Piqua, Ohio/Piqua), junior Tom Pickering (Newark, Ohio/Catholic), freshman Brandon Deford (Westerville, Ohio/North), freshman Andrew Wellman (Huntington, W.Va./Huntington) and Foster.
Among several highlights of the spring trip were a one-hit, complete-game 1-0 shutout of Mount Union by Goldschmidt on March 8 and a 24-0 victory over Emerson later that day. In the Mount Union win, Goldschmidt made a lone unearned run in the second inning stand up for the win. Against Emerson, 13 different players got at least one hit, 12 different players scored at least one run and 12 different players drove in at least one run.
For the season, the Tigers have a sparkling 2.72 team earned run average, and five pitchers have perfect 0.00 ERAs. Most impressive is sophomore Tyler Jacobs (St. Paris, Ohio/Graham), who has not allowed a run in 7 2/3 innings pitched.
Offensively, the Tigers haven't hit as well as hoped overall, but several individuals have shined. Most notably, junior Jon Komperda (Bay Village, Ohio/Bay) has started all 10 games and hit .342 in the leadoff spot. He leads the team with 13 hits, nine runs batted in and 17 total bases. Sophomore Brian Hampp (Hilliard, Ohio/Davidson) is hitting .312 with a team-best five doubles and four RBI.
March 23rd, 2004: Baseball Review
Posted: Mar 23, 2004