Baseball Sweeps Muskingum; Earns Programs Second OAC Championship
The Heidelberg College baseball team, under the guidance of eighth year head coach Matt Palm, claimed the program’s second Ohio Athletic Conference Regular Season Championship following its sweep today (Saturday, May 5, 2007) over Muskingum College. Heidelberg won game one 5-2 and returned to claim game two 8-5.
Heidelberg shares the regular season championship honor with Marietta College after both teams finished the year with a 13-5 mark in league action. Heidelberg last won its first regular season title in 2003.
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Palm spoke highly of the attitude and composure of his entire team through out the season. “The team has stuck together the entire season and kept working towards a championship. The group has great chemistry and pull for each other through all the trials and tribulations.” Adding to the team chemistry that Heidelberg posses is a strong schedule that prepares them for a rugged OAC slate. Palm added “we played a great schedule against some top programs and when you get into the heated battle of the OAC it is better to have played at a high level.”
Heidelberg earned the right to host the 2007 OAC Tournament as well. Based on the tiebreaker of head-to-head competition from top to bottom in the final league standings, Heidelberg sweep John Carroll University, while Marietta split, giving the Berg the right to host the tournament. Heidelberg will be the No. 1 seed followed by Marietta and Otterbein. Rounding out the four-team tournament will be Capital University. The tournament will be played May 10-13.
“We are looking forward to hosting the tournament,” said Palm. “It will be nice to play at our home field and have all of our supporters here to watch us. The last time we hosted, we fell one game short of winning the championships, so it will be nice to get another shot at winning on our home field.”
In game one, Heidelberg jumped out of the gates with a 4-0 lead after one inning and never looked back in the 5-2 victory. Leading the way in its first at bat was a two RBI double from Alex Rutter (Bowling Green, Ohio / Blowing Green). Heidelberg scored its fifth run in the fifth inning off the bat of Matt Hille (Fort Wayne, Ind. / Homestead).
Earning the game one victory was sophomore left-hander David Paddock (Westerville, Ohio / North). Paddock pitched a complete game, giving up five hits, while striking out eight to improve to 7-3 on the year.
In the night cap, Heidelberg held a 4-0 lead after two innings, but Muskingum battled back to tie the game in the third inning. Heidelberg’s Jack Bault (Randolph, Ohio / Waterloo) drew a bases loaded walk in the fifth inning to push the eventual game-winning run across home plate.
Junior Andrew McFarland (Mansfield, Ohio / Madison) picked up his sixth victory on the year, pitching a complete game. McFarland gave up eight hits, five runs, just three earned runs, while striking out two.
Leading Heidelberg’s offense on the day was Rutter and Pawlowicz with four hits apiece. Rutter also led the way with three RBI, while Jeremy Wentworth (Johnstown, Ohio / St. Charles) scored three runs.