DC Baseball Wins Over Hanover

Zachary Bires (Defiance, Ohio)

The Defiance College Baseball team opened up conference play this past weekend at home against Hanover. The Jackets came into this series 7-5 overall in their non conference play, while Hanover came in at 3-10.

The Jackets started the series strong with a win over Hanover 14-7. The offense was on fire the whole day, scoring in the first 6 innings. Dave Blanch received the start for the Jackets, throwing 8 stellar innings, giving up 5 runs, but none were earned. He also struck out 4. Ryan Kohlhofer, Gary Levengood, Quinten Harrington, Tanner Stippich, and Zack Reed all had 2 or more hits, while Weber highlighted the day with 3 RBI’s.

DC then dropped a tough one the following day to Hanover. The game went back and forth the whole day, but DC fell 7-6, not able to overcome the 5 errors and leaving baserunning mistakes. Nick Peters started the game, followed by Cody Nelson, followed by Jacob Green, who got the loss on the day, despite striking out 7 on the day. Tanner Stippich highlighted this game with 2 RBI’s.

DC was able to bounce back in the third and final game of the series, winning 5 to 2. Nick Watkins had a stellar performance on the mound, throwing 8 innings and only allowing two runs. He ended by striking out 5 batters. Watkins was able to improve his record to a perfect 4-0, while senior Chris Douglas came on in the 9th to record his 2nd save. Zack Reed, Harrington, and Michael Gilliland all had multi hit games, and Reed had 2 RBI’s on a huge triple in the 2nd inning.

Junior Zack Reed felt great after the series win saying, “Winning any conference series is huge. We had two great team wins where we pitched it well and had some timely hits. We are now focused on Manchester, which will be a big one to get being the first game of the series against them.”

The Jackets continue their quest on making the conference tournament on Tuesday at 4:15 at Manchester, followed by a weekend series at Translyvania.