The Little Giants scored a 6-5 victory in 10 innings in their first-ever North Coast Athletic Conference Baseball Tournament appearance against the ninth-ranked College of Wooster Fighting Scots. The Scots came back in game two of the best-of-three series with a 20-1 win to send the semifinal series to a decisive game three Sunday afternoon.
Wabash took an early 2-0 lead in the first inning at Wooster on a two-run single by John Holm to score PJ Tyson and Jake Thomas. The Little Giants added a third run in the fourth when a blast to left center by David Seibel hit the top of the outfield fence and bounced back into play, scoring Matt Dodaro from second for a 3-0 lead.
The Scots answered with a two-run fourth before taking its only lead of the game in the fifth inning when Matt Groezinger hit a two-run homer to right center to put Wooster up 4-3. The Little Giants tied the game in the seventh on a Derek Bailey walk, a bunt single by John Pennington, and a double by Thomas to score pinch-runner Patrick McCarley.
Holm picked up his third RBI of the game in the eighth when he launched a home run to right off of Wooster starter Mark Miller, only the second home run allowed by the senior right-hander in his career and first since his sophomore season. The Scots rallied for the tying run in the bottom of the fifth off reliever Andrew Swart. The Wabash freshman had come into the game in the seventh inning to bail starter Andy Weeks out of a bases-loaded one-out situation without allowing a run to score.
The game went into extra innings before Dodaro opened the tenth with a leadoff single. Holm sacrificed the senior to second before a fly ball to right by Seibel put him at third. Brian Lares lifted a single to right for the eventual game-winning RBI. Keegan Leckrone pitched the final inning, strikking out two Wooster players after starting by hitting the leadoff batter for the Scots in the inning.
Weeks threw 6-1/3 innings, allowing four earned run on six hits with four walks and five strikeouts. Swart picked up his fifth win of the season with 2-2/3 innings of one-run, three-hit baseball. Swart struck out two and walked one batter. Leckrone earned his fifth save of the season.
Matt DeGrand took the loss for the Scots, pitching three innings of relief for Miller. DeGrand gave up just two hits in the losing effort. Miller scattered eight hits with four earned and one unearned run. He walked two and struck out four.
Wooster took an early 3-0 lead and never looked back in game two, scoring in five consecutive innings to close out the evening finale. Wabash did not collect its first hit until the fifth inning when Bailey hit a double to the left center field gap. Dodaro hit his seventh home run of the season for the only run of the game for Wabash. Mike Korfhagen took the loss to fall to 4-4 for the year. Justin McDowell was the winning pitcher for Wooster to improve to 6-2.
The two teams will meet in the decisive third game Sunday at 12 p.m. at Art Murray Field in Wooster.