Youngstown State Advances to Championship Game; UWM and WSU Still Alive

Horizon League Scoreboard (May 23)
(3) Valparaiso 1, (2) UIC 0
(1) Wright State 7, (3) Valparaiso 0
(6) Youngstown State 11, (4) Milwaukee 5

Schedule for Saturday, May 24
11 a.m. - Game 9 - (4) Milwaukee vs. (1) Wright State
3 p.m. - Game 10 - Winner of Game 9 vs. (6) Youngstown State

(6) Youngstown State 11, (4) Milwaukee 5
For the second consecutive night, Youngstown State jumped out to an early lead as the Penguins knocked Milwaukee to the loser’s bracket with a 11-5 win on Friday night.

The Penguins jumped out to a 5-0 lead over top-seed Wright State after three innings on Thursday night. Tonight, YSU scored one in the first and then exploded for seven runs in the second inning to take an 8-0 lead before Milwaukee even had a chance to bad for the second time in the game.

Phil Lipari led things off in the first inning with a single and scored when Matt Sullivan singled to the short stop.

In the second inning, some timely hitting and costly errors by Milwaukee helped YSU break the game open.  In the top half of the frame, YSU had five hits and two walks, while Milwaukee committed two errors, a balk and had a wild pitch to lead to seven Penguin runs (only two earned).

For the game, seven different Penguins had a hit and eight players recorded at least one RBI. Lipari led the effort with a 3-for-6 effort and is now 8-for-16 in the tournament. Sullivan went 3-for-4 at the plate in the game with two RBIs.

Patrick O’Brien picked up the win for the Penguins. Staked to a 9-0 lead, O’Brien threw 73% of his 94 pitches for strikes which led to 10 Panther hits, but UWM was never able to string together enough hits to threaten YSU.

(3) Valparaiso 1, (2) UIC 0
It was a pitching duel in the first game of the Horizon League Baseball Championship on Friday as Valparaiso defeated second-seed UIC, 1-0.
The Flames were eliminated from the tournament and end their season with a 24-27 record.

A day after Dalton Lundeen heaved 8.2 innings of shutout ball, Ellis Foreman threw eight innings of shutout ball to help Valparaiso avoid elimination for the second straight game.

Foreman struck out five, walked one and allowed four hits total. Karch Kowalczyk came on in the ninth, and  after a throwing error allowed the leadoff hitter get aboard, retired the final three batters to record his 11th save of the day.

The Crusaders got their lone run of the game in the fourth inning. After a popup, Kowalczyk singled down the left field line and advanced to third on a single by Andrew Bynum. Andy Burns recorded the second out with a sacrifice to move Bynum up to second base. With two outs, Jake Hanson singled to center field to score Kowalczyk to give Valpo the only run it would need.

Hanson paced the Valpo offense with a 3-for-4 effort at the plate, while Bynum went 2-for-4. All nine of Valpo’s hits were singles.

UIC managed to get a runner into scoring position in the seventh, eighth and ninth inning, but were never able to capitalize.

UIC Sophomore Ian Lewandowski went the distance for the Flames, allowing one earned run on nine hits, while walking one and striking out one.

(1) Wright State 7, (3) Valparaiso 0
Two hours after shutting out UIC to stay alive, Valparaiso saw the other side versus Wright State as the Raiders’ Robby Sexton pitched a complete game shutout to eliminate the Crusaders.

Sexton went all nine innings, striking out four, walking one and allowing seven hits to secure his League-best eighth win of the season.

A day after only managing one run, Wright State doubled that effort in the first inning Friday as the Raiders jumped out to a 2-0 lead over the Crusaders after an inning. After an opening ground out, the next three Raiders reached base to load the bases with one out. Sean Murphy brought the first Raiders run of the game in on a fielders choice and Brad Macciocchi secured WSU’s second run when his hot shot to third base was too tough to handle and all runners were safe.

The Raiders’ added their third run of the game when second baseman Michael Timm executed a perfect suicide squeeze to score Joe Ford.

Wright State broke open the game with a four-spot in the sixth inning to take a 7-0 lead. A throwing error on the first batter of the inning helped setup the Raiders for the big inning as the next three Wright State batters all singled. A double play momentarily stopped Wright State’s momentum, but Murphy hit a two-our, two-run single to score WSU’s final runs of the game.

The Raiders spread out their 10 hits as eight different players recorded at least one hit. Limbaugh and Jason DeFevers were the only Raiders to record multiple hits. Murphy had a team-high three RBIs.