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Wright St. has all the right stuff
First-place Raiders rout Penguins again
By Brandon Judeh
Niles
Youngstown State’s baseball team has had its fair share of struggles this season, especially against Horizon League opponent Wright State.
Those woes continued on Friday as the Penguins lost to the Raiders 15-3 at Eastwood Field.
The Penguins (9-36, 7-18 HL) have now been outscored, by Wright State 73-11 in four games.
Tristan Moore kicked things off for the Raiders (34-16, 18-7 HL) with a two-run blast into the YSU bullpen to give Wright State the early lead.
Things only got worse for the Penguins, as the best all-around team in the Horizon League continued to pour things on.
In the fourth inning, with YSU already down 3-1, Wright State scored three runs to push its lead to five.
“We have to pitch better in order to stop their offense,” said YSU coach Rich Pasquale. “We didn’t make the adjustments we needed to.”
YSU starting pitcher Russ Harless had a rough outing, going 5 1/3 innings, allowing 10 hits and eight earned runs.
Despite Friday’s performance, Pasquale has seen improvements from his freshman pitcher.
“All year Russ has been giving us quality starts and today there were a couple innings where he went out and put zeros on the board, but today was really the first time he was off,” said Pasquale.
“He’s a hard worker and I know he will bounce back next week.”
Prior to Friday’s loss, Harless had won his previous two starts while lowering his ERA by a full run.
In the sixth inning, Wright State’s Jake Hibberd and Zach Tanner each knocked in a run, but it was a sacrfice fly that was perhaps the strangest play of the game.
With runners on second and third, Moore hit a deep fly ball to center. Jason Shirley made the catch, but both runners tagged and scored for a rare two-RBI play to push the lead to 11-1.
Showing that his team is more than just offense was Raiders starting pitcher Taylor Braun.
Braun pitched seven innings, struck out five and only gave up three hits.
“We knew he was going to throw some offspeed pitches, but we didn’t make adjustments when we had two strikes on us,” Pasquale said.
There were some bright spots for the Penguins. Third baseman Drew Dosch smacked an RBI double into the right center gap and Jeremy Banks followed with a RBI ground out.
Banks knocked in two runs, including a RBI double in the first inning, raising his batting average to .407. Catcher Craig Goubeaux reached base twice and David Leon had a hit and scored a run.
The Raiders pounded out 17 hits with Hibberd getting three of them. Moore had four RBIs on two hits and scored two runs while Corey Davis drove in two runs.