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ATHENS, Ohio — The Ohio baseball team (6-9, 2-2 Mid-American Conference) rallied for five runs in the bottom of the eighth inning to defeat Kent State 9-4 on Friday night (March 15). 

The Bobcats instantly put pressure on the Golden Flashes (8-9, 3-1 MAC) in that inning. They loaded the bases on bunt singles from redshirt junior Nick Dolan (Pittsburgh, Pa.) and freshman JR Nelson (Vernon Hills, Ill.) and a free base to graduate student Trenton Neuer (Nicholasville, Ky.). With no outs on the board, senior Gideon Antle (Licking, Mo.) reclaimed the lead on a single through the left side. 

Kent State made a pitching change after Antle's hit. Jordan Kolenda earned three strikeouts that inning, but sandwiched two RBI-walks to junior Jackson Cauthron (Murfeesboro, Tenn.) and senior Cole Williams (Charlotte, N.C.), as well as a two-RBI single to graduate student Bryce Smith in between them. 

"We played pretty clean baseball. We had one error, so it was really good to see us play a little bit better defensively after some struggles," head coach Craig Moore said. "Our offense came through when they when they had to. We had some big hits by a lot of different guys. We had good discipline and we executed the game late when we needed to and we forced them to make some bad decisions and things like that. Overall it was it was very, very good win for for game one of the weekend."

Before the eighth, Ohio had kept Kent State scoreless since it hit a lead-off home run in the first inning. Starting pitcher junior Dillon Masters threw five scoreless innings with the help of his slider. Of the 114 pitches Masters threw, 73 of them were strikes. He ended the day with five strikeouts.  

"I got off to a little bit of a rough start first pitch, but last year had Akron I did the exact same thing. It's about how you bounce back though. You can't let a solo home run beat you in the first inning. I knew we were going to score runs," Masters said. 

Masters' intuition served well. In the bottom of the first inning, freshman Pauly Mancino (Westlake, Ohio) knocked a lead-off home run of his own to even the game. Not before too long, the Bobcats added two more runs in the bottom of the fourth on a fielder's choice from Smith and a triple from Mancino to score him. 

The triple was Mancino's second triple of the year, which tied him for first in the MAC. 

"I knew I hit the ball well, I saw get down, and knew I had a guy scoring. I just wanted to get more, so I took the extra base try to get more runs on the board," Mancino said 

Mancino was one of five Bobcats to have multiple hits today. Others included Antle, Nelson, Dolan and redshirt junior AJ Rausch (Powell, Ohio). Williams also recorded a hit on Friday, a double in the bottom of the fourth. 

Junior Zach Weber (3-2) (Lebanon, Ohio) earned the win after he came in for Masters during the top of the seventh inning. Over his two and one-thirds innings, Weber allowed one hit on one run and struck out one batter. 

Ohio will be back in action on Saturday (March 16) to face Kent State in the second game of a three-game series. First pitch is scheduled for 2 p.m. at Bob Wren Stadium.