Wayne State Edged By Norse In Baseball Regional Opener, 2-1
Release courtesy of the WSU Sports Information Department
EVANSVILLE, Ind. - The Wayne State University
baseball team (32-19) came out on the losing end of a narrow 2-1
result in its NCAA Midwest Regional first-round game against
Northern Kentucky University (42-15) on Thursday afternoon at the
University of Southern Indiana.
The contest featured a head-to-head matchup of the GLIAC and GLVC
Pitchers of the Year, as both Kevin Jordan and Justin
Mazur (Macomb, Mich./De La Salle) went the distance for their
respective teams.
Mazur (6-2) allowed just two runs on four hits, walking a pair and
striking out three. Jordan (8-3), who was working on a shutout
until the ninth, gave up only one unearned run and scattered six
hits.
In a game which barely crossed the two-hour mark, hits and base
runners came at a premium. The Norse wasted little time in taking a
1-0 lead as Jason Cisper, the GLVC Player of the Year, led off the
game with a single and scored on an RBI base hit by Evan
McDole.
Shannon McCormick subsequently flied out to center field, and
Kyle Vesey (Brighton, Mich.) threw out Bryan Rose trying
to score from third, keeping it a one-run game.
Mazur settled in after the first inning, retiring 14 of the next
16 hitters he faced including a stretch of eight straight.
Jordan, who struck out five and did not walk a batter Thursday,
was equally stingy, recording 11 straight outs heading into the
ninth.
Meanwhile, Northern Kentucky doubled its lead in the sixth as
McDole, who drew a two-out walk, stole second and scored on a base
hit by McCormick.
Ryan LaPensee (LaSalle, Ont./St. Thomas of Villanova)
led off the ninth with a base hit, reached second on a groundout,
and went to third as Alex Trojan (Fenton,
Mich./Hartland) was safe on NKU’s third infield error of the
game. Brad Guenther’s (Ann Arbor, Mich./Saline)
pinch-hit bunt single plated LaPensee, but Vesey flied out to end
the game.
Still alive in the double-elimination tournament, Wayne State will
meet the winner of Thursday night’s Southern
Indiana-Indianapolis game on Friday at 4:00 p.m. ET. Live
stats and audio links of all NCAA Regional games are available at
gousieagles.com.
NOTES
The Norse avenged a 4-1 loss to the Warriors in the 2008 NCAA
Regional, their last meeting before Thursday … Wayne State
is 4-3 all-time against NKU … LaPensee extended his hitting
streak to 16 games, the longest by any Warrior this season …
WSU is 8-7 in one-run games this season.
