GAMBIER, Ohio – Senior
Mikey Arman fueled the Kenyon College baseball team from his leadoff spot during Saturday's North Coast Athletic Conference doubleheader with the Wittenberg University Tigers. His bat carried the host Lords to a 9-4 victory in game one, but it wasn't enough in game two, which the Tigers claimed, 16-0.
Arman went 2-for-3 with two runs scored and three RBI in game one and then went 2-for-3 again in game two. Over his last ten games, Arman was unstoppable at the plate. In that span, he went 23-for-42 (.548) with six doubles, a triple and two home runs. He also walked five times, and amassed 11 runs scored and a dozen RBI.
With the score tied 1-1 in game one, the Lords broke things open with a four-run sixth inning.
Paul Siciliano started things out with a single. Arman walked and then
Matt von Roemer singled to score Siciliano. Later in the inning,
Alex Gow singled to score Arman and
Patrick O'Leary doubled down the leftfield line to plate both Gow and von Roemer.
Now with a 5-1 lead, the Lords didn't let up. In the bottom of the seventh inning they tacked on three more runs. A two-run double from Arman highlighted that Kenyon outburst, one that ended up securing the win.
On the mound, sophomore
Will Allen got the start for the Lords. He only gave up one run, despite allowing five hits and four walks in four innings of work. Classmate
Nathan Chandler took over and went a little more than four innings. He earned the win after giving up three runs on just one hit, but four walks.
Overall, Kenyon pitchers allowed ten walks and they started to pile up late in the game, especially in the ninth inning when Wittenberg loaded the bases and scored twice off two free passes and again on a hit-by-pitch.
Will Oakley, another Kenyon sophomore, picked up his fourth save of the season after getting out of that bases-loaded jam by recording the final two outs of the game.
The nightcap was a much different story, as Wittenberg starting pitcher Jace Barga shut out the Lords on just four hits. He pitched all nine innings, walked one and struck out seven. Arman had two hits off of Barga.
Ryan Page and Gow accounted for the only other Kenyon hits.
Gow got the game-two start for Kenyon and got roughed up by the Tigers, who put six runs on the board in the top of the first inning. Walks again plagued the Lords' pitching staff. Gow worked four innings, gave up eight runs, walked five, struck out four and allowed four hits.
John Henry Fowler and
Brad Clegg pitched the next four innings and allowed eight more runs on combined totals of six hits and three walks.
Luke Calcei pitched a clean ninth inning, aside from one final walk.
The Lords defense didn't do the pitching staff any favors, either. Five game-two errors resulted in seven unearned runs.
Kenyon, now 11-13 overall and 5-5 in the NCAC, will return to McBride Field on Sunday for a 1 p.m. make-up game with Denison University.
