FORT PIERCE, Fla. – Trailing 8-0 late in Thursday's baseball game against University of Northwestern–St. Paul, the Kenyon College Lords constructed a massive rally that included three runs in the eighth inning and seven more in the ninth to complete an improbable 10-8 win.
The victory moved Kenyon's overall record to 5-6 and was the team's fifth straight win after starting the season 0-6. Northwestern, on the other hand, dropped its fourth straight contest and fell to 2-8.
Shutout for the first seventh innings of play, the Kenyon offense finally got rolling with a one-out triple from junior
Matt Contreras. Sophomore
Simon Fruth then singled Contreras home. Fruth moved to third on a double from
Patrick O'Leary and later scored on a single from freshman
Jake Brown. O'Leary scored the Lords' final run of the eighth inning thanks to an error by the Northwestern left fielder.
That was just a taste of things to come for the Lords, who went into the ninth inning down 8-3.
In that final inning, Kenyon sent 11 batters to the plate and attacked Northwestern pitching with seven hits. The Lords scored four runs right off the bat and two more Northwestern errors opened the gates for three more Kenyon runs.
Mikey Arman led off the inning with a solo home run to left field. Three straight singles, combined with those two Northwestern errors, allowed
Reese Proctor,
Matt von Roemer and Contreras to score. Fruth then scored again on a single from O'Leary and O'Leary scored on a double struck by
Paul Siciliano.
Alex Hoskins, who singled before Siciliano's double, scored the Lords' final run of the game on a sacrifice fly from Arman, who was at the plate for the second time in the inning.
When the dust settled, Arman, Contreras, O'Leary and Hoskins all had three hits for the Lords, who put up a season-high team total of 20 hits, including five doubles, a triple and a home run. Two-hit games came from von Roemer, Fruth and Siciliano. Contreras, Fruth and O'Leary all scored twice, while Arman and Brown both had a pair of RBI.
Kenyon reliever
Luke Calcei pitched the sixth, seventh and eighth innings to pick up the win. In that time, he allowed just one unearned run on three hits.
Will Oakley tossed a clean ninth inning and picked up his second save in as many games.
Nathan Chandler got the start for the Lords, but had a rough go of it on the mound and didn't make it out of the second inning. Northwestern starter, Nathan Ehnstrom, went eight innings and struck out seven, but didn't figure into the decision. Andrew Simonson took over for Ehnstrom in the ninth and gave up six runs without recording an out.
Kenyon has three more games left in its spring break schedule, which is playing out at the Gladwin Sports Complex. The Lords play Earlham College on Friday and then wrap things up with a Saturday doubleheader against Washington College.
