Baseball Continues Its Winning Ways in Terre Haute

The Heidelberg College baseball team, under the guidance of ninth-year head coach Matt Palm, continued to add to its 2008 win total following a 4-1 win over Calvin College on day two of the NCAA Mideast Regional hosted by Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Ind. The win is the 39th on the year compared to just eight setbacks for the Ohio Athletic Conference Champions. Thus far in the tournament the Berg , the No. 1 seed, has lived up to its seeding with a 2-0 mark. Calvin, seeded third in the regional, closed out its year at 32-10 in the loss.
 
The win keeps Heidelberg in the winner’s bracket of the six-team regional and will face either No. 4 seeded Rose-Hulman or No. 5 seeded Adrian College tomorrow (May 16) at noon.
 
Heidelberg continued to produce strong pitching in its second outing of the regional. Senior Andrew McFarland (Mansfield, Ohio / Madison) got the start on the mound and threw a three-hitter through 6.1 innings. He allowed just one earned run, while striking out three. The right-hander earned the win and improved to 7-1 on the year. Helping to preserve McFarland’s victory was freshman right-handed closer Andy Lowe (Fort Wayne, Ind. / Carroll). Lowe threw the final 2.2 innings and did not allow a run to score, while striking out two. The save is Lowe’s eighth on the year. In the 2008 postseason, Lowe has made five relief appearances on the mound for the Berg and has picked up two wins and three saves.
 
Heidelberg got on the scoreboard early, with a Cody James (Belle Center, Ohio / Benjamin Logan) RBI single in the first inning. James knocked in Jeremy Wentworth (Johnstown, Ohio / St. Charles), who reached on a lead-off single. Wentworth’s run that he scored marked the 54th on the year, which set a new Heidelberg single-season record. Wentworth finished the game with two runs scored which increased his season total to 55. Today’s contest marked the 47th on the year that Wentworth has played in, which ties the record for games played in a year. Joining Wentworth with 47 games played on the year and tied for the single season record is sophomore catcher Steve Decker (Maumee, Ohio / Springfield) and freshman second baseman Gar Keen (Fredericktown, Ohio / Highland). The trio share the record with Jon Hatfield and Jimmy Williams who both played in 47 contests during the 2004 campaign. It is the second-straight game that Wentworth has set a new record at the Berg. Yesterday he moved atop the record book in hits in a single season.
 
Calvin scored its lone run in the bottom of the second inning on a sacrifice fly to right field to score Chris Blacklidge, who opened the inning with a double.
 
The game remained at a 1-1 tie through three innings before the Berg had two runners on and Matt Grassley (Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich. / Grosse Pointe North) connected for a single to left center to score the eventual game-winning run from third. Grassley’s game-winning RBI single marked the second hit on the day for the junior left fielder. Grassley picked up a double in the second inning which was his team-leading 20th on the year. His 20 doubles ties the single season record. Grassley shares the record with Hatfield, who accomplished the feat in 2005.
 
Heidelberg closed out the game with two more insurance runs in the ninth inning. Back-to-back hits by Biagio Boytim (Brunswick, Ohio / Brunswick) and Willie Brechun (Clinton, Ohio / Canton Central Catholic) put two runners on base for Wentworth, who would knock in a run with a single to left field. Later in the inning Keen picked up an RBI single to score the Berg’s final run of the game.
 
For the contest, Heidelberg pounded 13 hits led by Keen and James with three apiece. Also picking up multiple hits were Grassley, Wentworth and Boytim.