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ATHENS, Ohio-- The Ohio baseball team (8-6, 2-1 MAC) defeated Kent State (5-7, 1-2 MAC) 9-4 on Friday (March 18) afternoon at Bob Wren Stadium.
Both teams started strong defensively as senior pitcher
Edward Kutt IV (Westlake, Calif.) held the Golden Flashes to just one hit in the first four innings and Ohio was held scoreless in the first three innings.
The Bobcats broke the tie in the fourth inning as senior infielder
Colin Kasperbauer (Sioux City, Iowa) singled up the middle to lead off the inning, advancing to second on a passed ball. Senior catcher
Mason Minzey (Grand Blanc, Mich.) doubled to right-center field to give the Bobcats the lead. With Minzey on second, first baseman
Cael Baker (Gahanna, Ohio) walked and redshirt freshman
AJ Rausch hit his first collegiate home run to bring in three runs and give Ohio a four-run lead.
Kent State answered in the next two innings with an RBI single in the fifth inning and a two-run home run in the sixth as the Bobcats still held onto a one-run lead after six innings. Kutt IV finished with 6.2 innings pitched, giving up three earned runs on six hits and seven strikeouts.
The Golden Flashes tied the game, though, in the eighth inning as senior pitcher
Brett Manis (Port Huron, Mich.) only allowed one run after Kent State loaded the bases with no outs.
"I did my job and kind of minimized them," Manis said. "But Eddie had a great start; he did his job and it made it easy on me."
Ohio didn't let the tie last long as redshirt senior
Michael Richardson (Cambridge, Md.) snuck a one-out solo home run over the left field wall to score the go-ahead run in the bottom of the eighth inning. The Bobcats blew open the lead after Baker walked again and Rausch battled for an 12-pitch at bat that ended with an inside the park home run- his second home run of the game to stretch the lead to three runs.
"I was a little gassed going around third base, but I didn't expect the center fielder to dive; I thought it was going to be a single," Rausch said. "Coach was waving me around third and I just wanted to do it for the team."
The Bobcats kept their foot on the gas as fifth year
Isaiah Peterson (Lincoln, Neb.) tripled to right field to score redshirt junior
Xavier Haendiges (Salem, Ind.). Peterson scored from third base on a single from Kasperbauer to stretch Ohio's lead to five at the end of the eighth inning.
Manis struck out two batters in the top of the ninth and finished with 2.1 innings pitched, giving up one run on two hits and four strikeouts and was the winning pitcher.
"It's huge, beating Kent State is always nice and getting off with that first win just gives us that momentum we've been having," Manis said. "We've been rolling and were just going to keep our foot on the gas."
UP NEXT
The Bobcats will take on the Golden Flashes again in Saturday for a doubleheader beginning at 12 p.m. The first game will be a seven-inning game, the second will be a full nine innings starting approximately 40 minutes after the conclusion of game one.
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