Junior Logan McLaughlin throws a pitch during this weekend’s series. Courtesy | Ashley Van Hoose

The Hillsdale baseball team split a four-game series at home against Ohio Dominican University March 27-29 and beat Davenport University at home 13-9 April 1, moving its season record to 12-14 and its conference record to 7-5.

“We are definitely making positive steps heading into the thick of conference play,” head coach Tom Vessella said. “We certainly need to make more as the schedule becomes more difficult every week.”

In the first game, the Chargers broke open a 2-0 game with a six-run eighth inning, winning 8-0 thanks to sophomore Brenden Smith’s eight shutout innings of two-hit ball.

“My changeup was really working on Friday and we produced a lot of early weak contact,” Smith said. “That’s where I found most of my success. It was a really good team win to start off the series.”

Sophomore Jake Figman went 3-for-3 at the plate and had the first three RBIs of the game and freshman Nolan Coppens went 3-for-4 with two runs scored.

Junior Winston Delp worked around trouble in the ninth inning to close out the game and preserve the shutout.

“The mindset on defense was just to be aggressive,” sophomore Gaard Swenson said. “Go get the ball and make a play, don’t wait for the ball to attack you and worry about making a mistake.  We had a few errors in the second and third game as a team, but were able to bear down, especially in that last game and be smooth and aggressive on defense.” 

After losing the Saturday doubleheader 3-2 and 14-7, the Chargers came back with a 5-4 win in the series finale.

Junior Logan McLaughlin pitched six innings of two-run ball, and senior Patrick MacLean threw three innings in relief.

After falling behind 2-0 in the top of the third inning, the Chargers took the lead in the bottom of the frame thanks to RBI singles from sophomore Tyler Sowers and junior Rocco Tenuta.

The Panthers tied the game in the top of the seventh after an RBI triple and wild pitch, but Tenuta put the Chargers in front for good after a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the inning.

“We had three really good starts from our starters and that takes a lot of pressure off of the offense and bullpen,” Vessella said. “Even so, we were still able to manufacture enough runs to keep things close.”

The Chargers will next play a four-game series against Northwood University in Midland, Michigan, April 3-4 before travelling to Grand Rapids, Michigan, for a single game against Davenport April 7.