DePauw baseball loses three of four games to Wittenberg

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The Tigers dropped three out of four games to Wittenberg University in the team's last weekend of regular season play.
DePauw dropped to 16-20 overall and 8-8 in the North Coast Athletic Conference West division. The team earned the third seed in the division and will travel to Allegheny College Saturday to start the cross-divisional series.
In the first game on Sunday, senior pitcher Jordan Niespodziany pitched a six-hit shutout to lead the Tigers to a 2-0 win over Wittenberg. Junior Rob Stein and senior Jason Cohen hit the games only runs in the fourth.
Niespodziany hit his spots, but relied on his teammates to get the win.
"Individually, I couldn't throw a curveball for a strike so I really relied on spotting my fastball and mixing in my change-up," Niespodziany said. "Throwing a seven inning shutout with just one strikeout is not common. Our defense came up with some big plays and really helped me get out of some tough spots. All the credit goes to them."
The Tigers struggled to clutch hits in big spots. In game four, DePauw couldn't take advantage of 13 walks issued by Wittenberg in the nightcap on Sunday.
"Whenever you get that many on base and don't score it's tough," head coach Jake Martin said. "Going into the weekend, we had a chance to win the West and I think we pressed a little and the bats went cold."
Despite the three losses, there was some fight shown by the Tigers. The Tigers battled in games two and four where they fell behind and nearly pulled off the comeback. DePauw would lose game two 7-6 in eleven innings and also dropped game four 5-4.
"I think the biggest positive from this weekend was that we know we have the ability to fight back when we are in a tight spot," Niespodziany said. "In games two and four we had late inning comebacks, although we still ended up losing."
DePauw will travel to Allegheny, Penn. to face the Gators in the three game cross divisional series. Martin hopes the team can put it all together to win the series and advance to the conference tournament.
"It feels like when we pitch well, we don't hit and when we hit we don't pitch," Martin said. "We're a good team and we just need to put it all together."