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Box Score 2 AVON, Ohio –The Notre Dame Falcons finished their first home series of the season on Monday with a pair of victories over Glenville State, finishing a four game sweep of the Pioneers with 2-1 and 13-7 victories at All Pro Freight Stadium.
Notre Dame (4-2, 4-0 MEC) has now won four in a row after starting the year with a pair of losses, while Glenville State (2-10, 2-8 MEC) has now dropped five in a row.
Game One
The first game of the day featured a pair of nice pitching performances on both sides.
Jake Welch (1-0) and Wesley Stauffer (1-1) worked in and out of trouble all throughout the contest, in a game where the two teams combined for just three runs on eight hits.
Glenville State took the early advantage, scoring their lone run in the top of the third inning, on Heath Swisher's RBI single through right side of the infield.
The Falcons had a few chances, to score, but did not cash in until the bottom of the fifth inning. NDC capitalized on a pair of errors to start the inning. A balk pushed
TJ Lett and
Austin Barnhart to third and second respectively, before
Jake Kirsh came through with a clutch, two-run single through the right side of the infield, giving NDC a 2-1 advantage.
The Pioneers would threaten two more times before the Falcons put the game away. They had the bases loaded in the top of the sixth inning, when
Jeff Stover (2) induced an inning ending groundout, and in the seventh, he sealed the deal, by inducing a game ending 6-4-3 twin killing to preserve the victory.
In his second outing of the season, Welch scored his first victory, allowing just a run on four hits with four strikeouts over 5.2 innings of work. Stover grabbed his second save of the season, tossing 1.1 innings of scoreless relief.
Game Two
The second game turned out to be a slugfest, as the two teams combined to score 20 runs on 23 hits.
Glenville State fired the first shot once again, scoring a pair of runs in the top of the first inning. Baugher smashed a run scoring double down the line in left to plate the first run, and Swisher struck again with a RBI single to give the Pioneers a 2-0 advantage.
Notre Dame then went to work in the home half of the third inning where they scored five runs on six hits to take the lead.
Danny Beaver started the inning with a double down the line in left, and he scored moments later on
Travis Smetana's RBI single to center. Later in the inning, the bases were loaded for
Andrew Hurd, who walked, plating the tying run. Lett and
Austin Barnhart then stroked back-to-back RBI singles and
Jalen Fields brought in the final run on a sac fly.
The Pioneers answered with a pair of runs in the fourth inning, narrowing the deficit to one (5-4) before the Falcons posted a four-spot in the fourth inning. The big fourth inning began with a triple from Smetana, followed by a walk for
Keifer Quick, setting up a huge three-run bomb down the left field line for
Blake Miller, his first of the season. Barnhart drove in the final run of the inning on an RBI single to center.
Glenville State put up three more runs in the top of the fifth inning to come within two (9-7), before the Falcons added four insurance runs in the sixth inning to put the game away. Quick started the inning with a double, and scored on DeFranco's groundout to third. Hurd then stroked a run scoring single down the left field line, and later in the inning, he and Lett would score on wild pitches.
Phil Ramos (1-0) scored the victory for the Falcons, as he tossed a pair of scoreless innings in one hit relief.
Several Falcons hit safely multiple times on the day, as five Falcons hit safely more than once in game two, with Barnhart leading the way, going 3-for-4 with a pair of runs batted in. Smetana, Quick, Miller and Hurd all hit safely twice, while Miller led the way with three RBIs.
The Falcons will be in action again next Saturday, March 21, when they play host to Concord (WV) in another Mountain East double header at All Pro Freight Stadium in Avon, Ohio. The first pitch in game one is scheduled for a 1 p.m. delivery.
