EASTLAKE, Ohio – The Lake Erie College baseball team competed on April 26th in the final two games of their four-game series against the Walsh University Cavaliers. The Storm took both games from the Cavaliers including a 15-inning thriller in game two to officially split the series.
GAME 1
Robert Helt got the start on the mound for the Storm in the first game of the doubleheader. He ran into some trouble early in the first inning, surrendering two runs but settling down and pitched 4.2 more efficient innings the rest of the way.
Lake Erie would notch their first run of the game in the bottom of the second on a Trevor Smentek RBI single, scoring Justin Major.
In the bottom of the fourth, Sebastian Silva kicked off the inning with a two-run home run to give the Storm the lead. The Lake Erie offense kept rolling in the inning and scored three more runs on doubles by Zach Hoskins and Graham Solak.
After allowing two runs in the top of the 6th, the Storm put a runner on base early in the top of the seventh. With the tying run at the plate, the Walsh batter smoked a line drive just in the reach of a leaping Israel Espinosa who landed and immediately fired to first to complete the double play and secure the victory for the Storm. The win snapped Lake Erie's 14-game losing streak and earned them their fifth win of the year and fourth conference victory.
WP: R. Helt (1-5)
LP: C. Gottschal (0-1)
SV: L. Vance (2)
GAME 2
Coming off the excitement of their close game, the Storm kicked off game two of the day by quickly shutting down Walsh 1-2-3 and scoring a run in the first inning. The Cavaliers responded however with a three-run second inning but Lake Erie tied it up on a two-run single by Jake Vasil in the bottom half of the second.
Over the next two innings of play, the Cavaliers put three more runs on the board and held the lead until the bottom of the sixth.
After earning a run in the bottom of the fifth on a Jacob Mote home run, the Storm busted out a four-run sixth inning due largely in part to Walsh pitching not being able to find the strike zone. The Cavaliers would throw 20 straight balls and walked home three runs in the process.
With an 8-6 lead, Lake Erie gave up two more runs over the next three innings and forced the game into extras. From there, neither team was able to get anything going and the game continued.
In the bottom of the 15th, the scoreless drought ended. Vasil reached first on an error by the Walsh third baseman, and with two outs, Zimba Cadiz sent a double down the line scoring Vasil and walking it off for the Storm.
The 15-inning affair would conclude at 11:00 PM with a total playtime of five hours and 15 minutes.
Cadiz finished the game going 4-for-8 with two runs scored and the game-winning RBI.
As a team, Lake Erie stole four bases and finally broke the single-season program record for most stolen bases in a season, previously set by the 2011 team.
WP: Avery Anderson (1-0)
LP: Z. Thompson (0-3)
The two wins on the day give the Storm their first series split of the season since March 26th-27th when they took two from Ohio Dominican. Their record now improves to 6-33 on the year and 5-19 in conference play.
They will be back in action April 27th to face the Ashland University Eagles for senior day.
