A Sunday sweep of Earlham gave the Wabash baseball team a 20-win season for the first time in five seasons and a third-place finish in the North Coast Athletic Conference Western Division. The Little Giants rallied from a six-run deficit in game two to pick up a 12-7 victory. Wabash won the first game of the doubleheader in Richmond, Indiana 3-2.
The Little Giants finished on a three-game winning streak thanks to a strong bullpen and some timely hitting. Earlham took a 2-0 lead in game one on two solo home runs before Wabash rallied.
Tanner Coggins and David Seibel opened the sixth inning with walks. Joe Johnson’s ground ball put runners on the corners with two outs. Adam Auter drilled a pitch into left field to score the first run of the game for the Little Giants. Nathan Schrader followed with another single to tie the game at 2-2.
Wabash manufactured the final run of the game. PJ Tyson was hit by an inside pitch, then stole second and raced to third on an errant throw by the catcher to start the seventh inning. The Little Giants failed to bring him home, however, until the Quakers misplayed a two-out ground ball by Shaun Rico to send Tyson home with the game-winning run.
Patrick McCarley came out of the bullpen to earn the win. He allowed only two hits in three scoreless innings with one strikeout. Andy Weeks surrendered two runs on five hits with three walks and two strikeouts in three innings as the starter. Keegan Leckrone picked up his fourth save with a perfect seventh inning with two strikeouts.
The Little Giants’ winning streak appeared to come to an end in the season finale. The Quakers scored three runs in the first inning and four in the second to chase starter Mike Korfhagen. The junior righthander picked up his 67th strikeout of the year, the fourth-highest single season total in Wabash history.
Brian Van Duyn came in to slam the door on the Earlham offense. The freshman got his fourth win with 3-2/3 innings of work out of the pen. He held the Quakers to just two hits.
Meanwhile the Wabash offense roared to life in the third inning. Jake Thomas and Tyson reached base ahead of Matt Dodaro, who drilled a three-run homer over the left field fence to cut the lead to four. The Little Giants added six more hits along with three Earlham errors, sending 14 batters to the plate in a nine-run inning. Dodaro added an RBI single in his second at-bat in the inning. Wabash added two more runs in the fifth for the five-run victory.
Thomas led the Little Giants with five hits in the two games, ending the season with an eight-game hitting streak. Dodaro tallied four hits. Auter finished the day with three RBIs in addition to throwing out three Quaker base stealers as the starting catcher.
The game was the last in a Wabash uniform for Rico. The senior first baseman added one RBI to his season totals. He finished tied for fourth on the Wabash single season list with 35 and tied for the team-lead in home runs with seven.
Wabash’s 20-19 record put the Little Giants over .500 for the first time since 2003. The team was one conference win away from earning its first NCAC Tournament berth.