Baseball BLOG
Bobcats look to extend streak on the road
By Zach Swartz, Sports Editor
May 8, 2007 | 12:30 p.m.
After beginning the season 1-16 away from Bob Wren Stadium, the Bobcats finally found a way to put together a pair of consecutive road wins.
On Tuesday Ohio (17-26, 3-15 MAC) traveled north and easily defeated Cleveland State 8-0 after the game was called on account of lightning in the sixth. Wednesday’s trip to Pittsburgh brought the Bobcats another victory, and the team came back to Athens with their first two-game road win streak of the year.
The green and white were stellar at the plate over the two games, as the Bobcat bats bagged 28 hits, 17 runs, and 6 walks. At Pittsburgh, four players had three hits apiece and two more had a pair. Matt Stiffler drew his team-leading 38th walk of the year to tie him for ninth on the all-time Ohio single-season walk list, and Jared Willis’ bat took the place of injured slugger Marc Krauss’s as he belted his second home run of the season.
“We’ve just been doing a better job of putting the barrel on the ball,” said head coach Joe Carbone. “We’ve been working on sitting on a fastball and, when we get it, doing something with it, and the last couple of games we’ve done that.”
The offensive onslaught was not too surprising, but the quality pitching performance the ‘Cats came up with was. On Tuesday starter Daniel Weiss went the full six innings while allowing no runs on just four hits. The next day emergency starter Chris Rigo gave up just one unearned run and a hit in three innings of work while Matt Schlarb, who got his team-leading sixth win of the season, allowed only two hits and a pair of runs in two frames, and John Angelicchi picked up his first save of the year with no runs and no hits allowed in three innings of his own.
Senior utilityman J.T. Osburn and senior outfielder Jared Willis, who are both usually slated to play against left-handed pitching, have also put together some impressive performances of late. Because of their effective play, coach Carbone commented that they should be getting into games more often against righties as well as southpaws.
Ohio will be looking to extend its road win streak when the team travels to Akron this weekend to face the Zips (19-17, 6-10 MAC). All of the Bobcats’ road wins this season have been against non-conference foes, so a few wins at MAC opponent’s field would be huge for a team that has just three wins in conference play.
“[The games] are all important,” said Carbone. “We have to win more than we lose, so we need to get in there and win.”
Sophomore right-hander Kevin Mementowski (2-2, 3.12 ERA) is slated to take the mound Friday for the ‘Cats opposite the Zips’ Billy McKinney (1-6, 5.07 ERA).