Baseball battered about by number one Wooster Scots

Team drops two games of double header Wednesday

Perhaps the Wooster Fighting Scots don't have as rigorous math classes as Oberlin students, but they sure can count to three. And count they did as inning after inning the Yeomen went down one-two-three and out. With little hitting, there was little scoring, and Oberlin stumbled to 11-1 and 14-2 losses to the College of Wooster.

Wednesday brought great baseball weather to a weary team that had lost to Ohio Wesleyan University Saturday 22-4 and 20-0. "They hit the ball like I've never seen a team hit the ball before," junior Dave Schummers said about the game.

Nevertheless, the Yeomen were ready to take on the defending national champions for a double header at home.

By the third inning of the first game, though, most of the spectators and players knew that a win for Oberlin wasn't to be.

The first inning started off hopeful for the Yeomen with Schummers bringing home first-year Eben Askins to answer the two runs that the Fighting Scots had scored in the top of the inning. After the third inning, though, the score was 8-1.

"They can hit the ball. They're big guys," first year Andrew Smith said. "They're damn good."

Junior Carson Keeble agreed. "They were a great team. They were solid hitters. We definitely could have played better, but we would have had to play an amazing game to beat them," he said.

The remaining innings went about the same way, with Oberlin hitters popping up to ready Scots. In the top of the sixth the Scots put a man on base after the batter before was struck out handily by sophomore Matt Burns. The next hitter looked confident as he stepped up to the plate, and he delivered with a two-run homer to put the Scots ahead 10-1.

The next inning wasn't much better. After a double, the Scots loaded the bases. And as if it was inevitable, Wooster produced a grand slam homerun, leaving them at their final score of 11-1.

Smith said the team didn't only lose to Wooster, but also to themselves.

"It didn't seem like their pitchers were all that great, but we weren't hitting. They were waiting for our good pitches. That's what great hitters can do," Smith said.

Burns who started pitching the first game was tired from the beginning. "Our pitchers are tired at the very beginning of the game. Until we get more than 13 players, we're going to have a hard time competing with 35 player teams, all who have played since they were two," Schummers said.

"Our pitchers throw too many innings per week," he said.

The second game's character was only different in the delay of the route. Askins and junior Mike Fradin scored the two runs of the game in the first inning, and the Yeomen kept it close through the third inning. But leading to Yeomen frustration, the Scots held batting practice the rest of the game, coming alive in the fourth inning and sweeping the double-header with a 14-2 win.

Despite these tough losses, the team remained quite positive with how the season is going and how they are playing. "The team dynamic is working out. People want to come to practice and work together," Schummers said. "I don't think we played that badly. We showed some signs of improvement from the first game to the second," he said.

The Yeomen play Wittenberg University Saturday and hope to make a good showing. "They're supposed to be really good. It's definitely going to be a tough game," Keeble said.

Strike one?: If this Yeomen hurler was lucky the ball stayed in the park. This past week, the team's opponents were hitting everything hard. (photo by Mike Kabakoff)