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YSU misses out on sweep vs. Oakland
By BOB ETTINGER
NILES
The Youngstown State baseball team had its chances to make plays to win both ends of a doubleheader with Oakland on Saturday. The Penguins made good on those opportunities in the first game and walked away with a 6-5 victory, but couldn’t do the same in the nightcap, dropping a 7-5 decision in 11 innings.
“I’m disappointed,” YSU coach Dan Bertolini said. “But it was a good baseball game. We had opportunities. I thought our pitchers got us out of some jams. We had chances to make some plays and get the big hit. (Oakland) found a way to do it and we didn’t.”
Drew Demumbrum gave the Golden Grizzlies a 7-5 lead with with a two-run double to the base of the wall in left-center in with two outs in the top half of the 11th.
“That was a tough situation,” Bertolini said. “I thought about walking him, but I hate to force the bases loaded. If we got behind, we were going to put him on. He hit a 1-1 pitch. I think our ball was hit better than theirs, but theirs got down in the gap.”
The Penguins (2-19, 1-4 in Horizon League) fell behind, 1-0, as starter Marco DeFalco struggled. The Niles graduate walked the bases loaded and allowed the run on a passed ball in the top of the first.
As DeFalco settled in, YSU took a 2-1 lead on RBI singles from Dylan Swarmer and Lucas Nasonti in the home half of the second.
“[DeFalco] did a good job minimizing mistakes,” Bertolini said. “He didn’t have his best command early, but he did a great job getting us though five innings. That was big for the staff for him to get us deep into the game.”
Oakland (1-18, 1-4) knotted the score, 2-2, on Demumbrum’s homer to right-center in the sixth, but the Penguins went back in front, 3-2, on a run-scoring single from Drew Dickerson a half-inning later.
Demumbrum knocked in a pair with a bases-loaded single and Matt Dileo scored on a wild pitch to put Oakland ahead, 5-3, but Trevor Wiersma drew a bases-loaded walk and Blaze Glenn’s sacrifice fly to left knotted it up, 5-5, through seven.
The Penguins left a pair in scoring position in the seventh and did so again in the 10th, setting up the Golden Grizzlies win in the 11th.
“They made a good pitch (to end the seventh with a strikeout),” Bertolini said. “It was a 3-2 slider, a good pitch on the black. I thought we battled. It was a good at-bat. It was a good baseball game. They just did a little more than we did to win the game.”
Dickerson had four hits and Nasonti added two more in the game.
The Penguins plated four runs in the fifth and two more in the sixth to overcome a 5-0 deficit for the 6-5 win in the first game. They had just four hits, but Nasonti drove in two to pace the offense.
“It was an ugly baseball game both ways,” Bertolini said. “In the end, we found a way to score more runs than they did. (Brett) Souder did a good job coming in (to earn the win) and the seniors had some big hits.”