May 23, 2008
Box Score
CHILLICOTHE, Ohio - The Ohio baseball team rallied in the top of the 13th inning, scoring four runs to defeat Bowling Green, 7-3, on Friday morning at V.A. Memorial Stadium. With the win, the Bobcats earned a 5 p.m. contest against Eastern Michigan in the Mid-American Conference Tournament semifinals.
Adam Goodpasture (Columbus, Ohio) earned the win for the Bobcats with four innings of scoreless relief. The junior lefty improved to 6-2 on the season. Bowling Green's Nick Cantrell took the loss after allowing four runs (two earned) on six hits.
Ohio's record improved to 29-29 with the win while Bowling Green's season ends with a 32-20 mark on the 2008 season.
The game began with Ohio's Matt Smith (Cincinnati, Ohio) and BGSU's Kevin Leady combining to throw six scoreless innings each before the Bobcats scored first with three runs in the top of the seventh inning. The Falcons answered with two runs in the bottom of the inning but it was the Falcons' Brandon McFarland, who hit a solo home run with one out in the ninth inning, to force extra innings. Smith went 8 1/3 innings, allowing three runs on nine hits with five strike outs and two base on balls.
The Bobcats broke the 3-3 tie in the 13th inning when Chris Klimko (McKeesport, Pa.) singled to right field, just past the diving glove of the Falcons' second baseman, driving in Brandon Besl (Cincinnati, Ohio) from second base. Besl hit a blast off the top of the left field fence, just a few inches away from being a home run, to begin the inning. Zach Hartle (Toledo, Ohio) tacked on another run for the Bobcats when the senior shortstop singled to right field and scored Klimko from second. The lead jumped to 7-3 when a Matt Stiffler (Bellbrook, Ohio) line drive to second base was dropped by BGSU's Logan Meisler and Hartle and Zach Keen (Beavercreek, Ohio) scored from third and second, respectively. Goodpasture pitched a scoreless bottom half of the 13th to give Ohio the victory.
Klimko, in addition to bringing home the game-winning run, went 2-for-5 with one run and two RBI. Besl extended his hitting streak to 11 games and Stiffler's one hit in the game gives him 90 this season, just one hit away from tying Ben Crabtree for the single-season record of 91 hits.
In the seventh inning, Stiffler hit a big leadoff double down the right field line that smacked up against the outfield wall. Jeremie Rehak (Pittsburgh, Pa.) followed with a line drive single, also to right field, that moved Stiffler to third base and Marc Krauss (Deshler, Ohio) was issued a base on balls to load the bases with no outs.
Besl delivered the first run of the game on a sacrifice fly to deep right field, bringing in Stiffler from third base and moving Rehak, tagging from second, to third. Rehak's heads-up base running proved vital, as Robert Maddox III (Euclid, Ohio) drove him home on another sacrifice fly, this time to right-centerfield.
Klimko tacked on the third run of the inning, smashing a double down the left field line that plated Krauss, running hard all the way from first base. That hit drove Leady from the game, and reliever Dusty Hawk replaced him on the mound.
Bowling Green wasted little time in putting their own crooked number on the board, as Shane Foster came through with a two-out, two-strike single to right field that scored Marty Baird and Mark Galvin, who each hit singles to start the inning. Following six scoreless innings, both teams were able to score in the seventh with Ohio holding a slim 3-2 lead heading into the eighth.
As Smith continued on the mound for the Bobcats, he delivered a 1-0 pitch to pinch-hitter Brandon McFarland with one out in the ninth that was driven high over the head of Krauss and the right field fence to tie the game at 3-3. The deep drive chased Smith from the mound as reliever Kevin Mementowski (Parma, Ohio) came into the game, his second appearance of the MAC Tournament. The junior quickly induced a 6-4-3 double play to end the inning and send the ball game to extra innings.
Ohio posted a 2-6 record in extra innings games during the regular season.
In the top of the 10th inning, Bowling Green lefty Brett Browning gave up a leadoff double to Hartle and then walked the bases loaded before being yanked for Cantrell, a senior right-hander.
Cantrell's first batter faced, pinch hitter Jerod Yakubik (Bayesville, Ohio), hit a ground ball to shortstop who threw to home to force out Hartle, running hard from third. Krauss came up next, bases still loaded with one out, and struck out looking on a 2-2 fastball. Cantrell got Besl to ground out to third base in the next at-bat to get out of a bases loaded, zero out jam with no runs scored.
Goodpasture worked out of a jam in the 10th inning and breezed through a 1-2-3 inning in the bottom of the 11th. He continued his excellent work, with another 1-2-3 inning in the 12th inning and with a 7-3 lead in the bottom of the 13th inning, he pitched another flawless inning, giving Ohio the victory.
The Bobcats will play Eastern Michigan at the conclusion of the Ball State/Northern Illinois content schedule to begin around 1:30. First pitch is tentatively scheduled for 4:30 p.m.
