The baseball team traveled to Greenville, Illinois to take on Greenville College in a three game series this weekend. The team employed a balance of shut-down pitching in the first game and strong hitting in the third game to build on last week’s success and take two out of the three victories.
Senior Jack Thompson hit a solo homerun in the top of the first to give DePauw a 1-0 lead, but Greenville responded with a run of their own in the bottom half of the inning after Shane Olmstead doubled to bring in a run.
Senior Mike Hammel was able to shut down the Panthers from that point on. He pitched a total of six innings, while only allowing that one run and scattered three hits.
Senior Zack Wade was able to extend the Tigers’ lead in the third inning when he rocked a homerun over the left center field wall to give the team a 3-1 lead. They did not give up the lead and came out with a 6-1 victory and a 4-0 record.
The team’s undefeated start to the season came to an abrupt stop after Greenville came from behind to beat the Tigers 6-4 in the second game.
After senior Max Cohen’s double in the fifth inning gave the team a 4-2 lead, the Panthers strung together four straight hits to give them a 7-6 lead. They added to their lead later in the inning when Klaiton Wolf’s double put them up 8-6 for good.
First-year pitcher Nick Casey was disappointed in the loss, but he is taking it as an opportunity to improve.
“Obviously you want to come out a get a win every single time you take the field,” Casey said. “But sometimes things aren’t going to fall your way. Looking back on this game can help me improve on some of the mistakes I made and make me better next time.”
DePauw got their revenge in the series finale when they got the chance to come from behind themselves to take an exciting 13-10 win.
Greenville scored nine straight runs to give themselves a 10-5 lead at the end of the fifth inning, but first-year CJ Yoannou knocked a three-run homerun in the seventh to cut the deficit to 10-8. It was Yoannou in the eighth again who scored junior Colin Einertson and senior Ryan Grippo to tie the game at ten.
Next up to bat was sophomore Elliot Shebek. This game was Shebek’s first appearance in a DePauw baseball game. Shebek nailed a line drive up the middle that deflected off Greenville’s pitcher and bounced away out of reach. Senior Tate Stewart scored on the play, and the Tigers regained the lead at 11-10. A Thompson hit scored two more later in the inning and the team was well on their way to their fifth win of the season.
“It was a great opportunity to play and something that I’ve always looked forward to,” Shebek said. “We have a lot of talent on this team and it’s always a fun experience to play alongside my brothers. We’ve shown that we are a resilient team that won’t be easy to put away because of our ability to come back in games and attack offensively.”
Head coach Blake Allen says the goal every weekend is to win the series, so he was happy with how his team performed overall.
“This was a unique situation because we played Greenville last weekend in Tennessee,” Allen said. “So we’ve played this team four times. Anytime you can take three out of four from a team you come out happy.”
The team is back in action this weekend for a three game series against Manchester University at Bishop Chatard High School in Indianapolis.