Heidelberg Suffers First Loss in Mideast Regional

The No. 1 seeded Heidelberg College baseball team suffered its first setback at the 2008 NCAA Mideast Regional following a 4-1 loss to No. 5 seeded Adrian College this afternoon at Art Nehf Field on the campus of Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Ind.
 
The loss drops Heidelberg to 2-1 in the regional and will face the winner of No. 2 seeded College of Wooster and No. 4 seeded Rose-Hulman this evening at 7:00 p.m. The winner of the seven o’clock game will earn a spot in the championship game tomorrow against Adrian, who improved to 3-0 in the tournament with the win over Heidelberg.
 
Heidelberg is no stranger to coming from the loser’s bracket to win a championship. Last weekend Heidelberg battled back to win an elimination game in the Ohio Athletic Conference Tournament and went on to post back-to-back wins on the championship day to win the league tournament title and an automatic bid to the regional tournament.
 
For the year Heidelberg stands at 39-9, while Adrian improved to 33-10 overall. The loss snapped a five-game winning streak for the Berg, who has lost just two games in its last 18 outings.
 
Adrian scored three runs in the first inning off of Heidelberg starter Jake Gossman (Westerville, Ohio / South) and never looked back. Gossman had trouble locating his pitches early on, walking in a run and gave up a two RBI single to left field. Gossman settled down following the first inning and threw through seven innings. He gave up four hits, while striking out nine.
 
Heidelberg’s lone run of the contest was on a solo home run to right center field by Willie Brechun (Clinton, Ohio / Canton Central Catholic) in the fifth inning.
 
The Bulldogs added an insurance run in the eighth inning to post the 4-1 win.
 
Despite Gossman’s slow start on the mound, he produced a solid outing through innings two through seven, but it was Heidelberg’s bats that were quiet. As a team Heidelberg has finished with double digit hits in its last nine outings, including 13 a day earlier, but could only connect for four on the day. Aside from Brechun’ home run, Jeremy Wentworth (Johnstown, Ohio / St. Charles), Jason Lash (Strongsville, Ohio / Strongsville) and Gar Keen (Fredericktown, Ohio / Highland) each picked up a hit.