Late Inning Heroics Lead Baseball Over Texas A&M, 8-7 – Ohio State Buckeyes
3/19/2000 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
March 19, 2000
Box Score
COLLEGE STATION, Texas – With 3,550 fans cheering against “that big school up North,” the Ohio State baseball team (12-4 overall) rallied with three runs in the final two innings to beat Texas A&M (13-14 overall), 8-7 at Olsen Field. Trent McIlvain (Jr., Louisville, Ohio) drove in his second game-winning run of the day and Cory Cox (Jr., Chillicothe, Ohio) quieted the vocal crowd with three shutout innings of work to lead the Buckeyes. The win puts OSU in first place with a 3-1 record at the Aggie Continental Airlines Classic with two games remaining.
“This team showed a lot of character tonight,” head coach Bob Todd said. “It wasn’t the prettiest game, but we did the things we had to do to win. The crowd was into the game and the atmosphere was intense, this ballclub didn’t back down and fought back to beat a good Texas A&M team.”
The Buckeyes took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning. With one out and John Mayor (Jr., Chesterfield, Ohio) on first base, Chad Ehrnsberger (Jr., Kalida, Ohio) lined a ball to rightfield to advance Mayor to third base. Jason Turner (Sr., Versailles, Ohio) took the first pitch offered from TAMU starting pitcher Khalid Ballouli and flied out to the centerfield to score Mayor and give OSU its first lead of the evening. The RBI was Turner’s 17th of the year.
OSU gave the Aggies a gift in the bottom half of the inning to tie the game. With the bases loaded from a pair of walks and a hit batter by OSU starting pitcher Nate Smith (So., Bryan, Ohio), Carlos Sepulveda lined a ball to Mayor at third base who then juggled the ball allowing a run to score, tying the game at one.
In the top of the second inning, the Aggies returned the favor to the Buckeyes. Doug Dendinger (So., Greenwich, Ohio) reached base on a throwing error by Haney. Back-to-back singles by Jason Driscoll (Sr., Middlefield, Ohio) and Check loaded the bases for Ehrnsberger. With two outs, the OSU All-American fell behind in the count 0-2, but eventually coaxed a walk out of Ballouli to give OSU a 2-0 lead.
Walks continued to haunt Smith in the bottom of the second inning as he proceeded to load the bases on three consecutive walks. A wild pitch then allowed Haney to score and a sacrifice fly by Jeff Freeman scored Eric Reed to give TAMU a 3-2 lead.
In the bottom of the fourth inning, the Aggies increased its lead to 5-2 courtesy of a two-run home run by Daylon Holt.
But the Buckeyes rallied in the top of the fifth inning for three runs. Ehrnsberger led off by taking a 1-0 offering from Ballouli off the left-centerfield scoreboard for his fifth home run of the year. Turner immediately followed by belting a 1-1 offering over the rightfield wall for his fifth blast of the year. Nick Swisher (Fr., Parkersburg, W.Va.) then walked and scored two batters later when Dendinger grounded into a double play to tie the game at five.
In the bottom of the fifth inning, Texas A&M retook the lead when Greg Porter walked to score Sepulveda and Ryan Wardinsky scored when Chris Russ grounded into a double play.
But Ohio State answered again in the top of the sixth inning to tie the game. Driscoll led off with single to centerfield and then moved to third base on a single by Check. Mayor then drove in Driscoll with a sacrifice fly to centerfield to cut the Aggie lead, 7-6. Check then put himself in scoring position by stealing second base and moving to third on a throwing error by TAMU catcher Jason Gremminger. With two outs, Turner grounded a ball that was mishandled by Wardinsky at shortstop to score Check and tie the game.
In the top of the seventh, Joe Wilkins (So., Grove City, Ohio) led off with a single to centerfield. He moved to second on a sacrifice bunt by Dendinger and then scored when McIlvain singled to the rightfield alley.
Smith did not factor in the decision. He went four innings, gave up five earned runs, struck out three and walked six. Cox improved to 2-0 on the year with three innings of one-hit, shutout baseball. Chris Russ (0-2) was the losing pitcher.
“This was a good team win,” Cox said. “Everybody chipped in and did something to put us over the top. We have two games left in Texas and this will hopefully give us good momentum going into tomorrow.”
Tomorrow, OSU plays Central Michigan at 11 a.m. and Texas A&M at 9 p.m.
