Round Up: April 29th, 2005: Baseball Review
The Wittenberg baseball team broke through this week, capturing the biggest game of the year on Wednesday with a 5-2 victory over Denison in the first game of the final North Coast Athletic Conference West Division series of the 2005 season. In the inconsequential nightcap, the West Division champion Big Red won 13-5.
The win in the opener was Wittenberg's eighth straight - but first in more than a week due to a weekend full of postponements due to terrible weather - and it gave the Tigers the tiebreaker edge over perennial powerhouse Ohio Wesleyan. Wittenberg and the Battling Bishops split a four-game set last month and wound up tied for second in the division at 9-5. The tiebreaker was winning percentage against the Big Red.
Overall, Wittenberg stands at 21-14 heading into a three-game series at Wooster, the champion of the East Division and the fifth-ranked team in the nation. The two teams are scheduled for a doubleheader starting at 1 p.m. on Saturday and then a nine-inning game at 1 p.m. Sunday if necessary. The team that gains two wins in the three-game series will advance to the NCAC Tournament Championship Series on May 5-6 in Springfield. Last year, Wooster defeated Denison in two straight games to capture the title and the conference's automatic berth in the NCAA Division III Tournament.
The doubleheader against Denison was originally scheduled as a four-game series over the weekend, but rain and snow, high winds and cold temperatures forced several postponements. That forced the two teams into a lone doubleheader on Wednesday and what was essentially a one-game playoff for the Tigers.
Handing the ball to senior ace Kurt Hartfelder (Columbus, Ohio/Upper Arlington) proved to be the key for the Tigers. Hartfelder tossed his eighth complete in eight starts while topping the 100-pitch mark for the first time all season. He allowed six hits and three walks while striking out one and allowing just one earned run in the game. He danced in and out of trouble throughout, getting key outs after each of Wittenberg's three errors.
Offensively, the Tigers got key RBI hits from junior Justin McCulla (St. Paris, Ohio/Graham) and senior Matt Foster (Granville, Ohio/Granville) in the decisive three-run fourth inning. Junior Brian Hampp (Hilliard, Ohio/Davidson) accounted for the two insurance runs, scoring on a wild pitch in the fifth and singling in the fifth run in the sixth.
Sophomore Andrew Wellman (Huntington, W.Va./Huntington) remained hot at the plate in the doubleheader, going 2-for-6 with a run and an RBI. That kept his average on school-record pace, currently checking in at .549 in 51 at-bats on the season. In addition, junior Brad Koopman (Pleasant Hill, Ohio/Newton) kept up his scorching pace, catching both ends of the doubleheader and collecting three hits, one run scored and one RBI. He is hitting .443 on the season.