Men’s Baseball Sufferes Loss to Northwestern, 6-4 – Ohio State Buckeyes
3/29/1998 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
March 29, 1998
EVANSTON, Ill. – After holding on to a 6-4 lead, the Northwestern Wildcats handed Ohio State it’s second loss of the weekend as the two teams split their Big Ten series 2-2.
Andy Lee (Jr., West Chester, Ohio) suffered his first loss of the season, pitching 6.1 innings and giving up five earned runs. The Wildcats took the early lead, putting up one run in the second inning. With two outs Ollie Dunn sinlged to right field and moved to third on a ground rule double by Bob Dainton. Kris Mussselman then stepped to the plate and fisted the ball into shallow left field, allowing Dunn to score.
OSU jumped right back in the contest, scoring once to tie the game at one apiece. Mike Lockwood (So., Powell, Ohio) singled to center field with two outs and scored from first on Mark Carek’s (Sr., Bowling Green, Ohio) doubled to left field. The Wildcats had a shot at Lockwood as he rounded third, but Musselman’s throw missed the cut-off man. Dan Seimetz (Sr., Massillon, Ohio) brought the crowd to its feet with a shot to right center field that Ken Kilian snatched at the fence for the final out.
The Buckeyes took the lead in the next inning when Jason Trott (Jr., Dublin, Ohio) tripled and was sacrificed home by Jason Turner (So., Versailles, Ohio), putting OSU up 2-1.
Northwestern regained the lead in the bottom of the sixth with three consecutive hits. Patrick Thompson singled to right field and moved to third on Brian Baron’s hit-and-run. Both Wildcats scored when Joe Hieptas doubled to left center field. Jason Driscoll (So., Middlefield, Ohio) led off the seventh with a single to right center field and scored to tie the game at 3-3. Driscoll stole second and advanced to third when Lou Santangelo (Jr., Youngstown, Ohio) laid down a sacrifice bunt, reaching on an error by Thompson who dropped the ball attempting to tag him. Driscoll came home when Lockwood grounded out to second base.
The Wildcats got the lead back again in the bottom of the seventh, posting three runs for a 6-3 lead. Ken Kilian led off with a single to right field and moved to third on Thompson’s single to center. Lee gave way to Mike Stafford (Sr., Canton, Mich.) who gave up a triple Baron that scored both NU base runners. J.P. Williamson then doubled to right center that brought in Baron for the Wildcats third run of the inning. Seimetz got one run back for the Buckeyes in the top of the eighth with his seventh home run of the year, but the Wildcats held on, moving to 13-7 and 2-2 in the conference.
Ohio State is now 14-6 (2-2 Big Ten) on the year and will play at home for the first time this season on Tuesday against Ohio Wesleyen at 2 p.m..
