From Case Western Reserve University Athletics
The Case Western Reserve University baseball team picked up a pair of wins on Sunday to run its winning streak to six games, as the Spartans topped the College of Wooster 5-1 in the early game, and defeated John Carroll University 8-5 in the second contest at Nobby's Ballpark.
The Spartans have now gone 14-3 in their last 17 games, improving to a season-best 10 games above .500 with a 22-12 overall record. The sweep also completed a stretch of six wins in as many games over a four-day period for Case Western Reserve.
Game 1: CWRU 5, #22 Wooster 1
Making just his second career start, freshman lefty Corey Brown held 22nd-ranked Wooster to a run on four hits over six innings of work to earn the first win of his collegiate career, as the Spartans topped the Fighting Scots 5-1.
The win completed a three-game sweep of the Scots by Case Western Reserve, after the Spartans swept a double header in Wooster on Saturday.
Brown improved to 1-1 on the season with the win, while lowering his earned run average to 4.50. The freshman struck out a pair and walked four during the game, and held Wooster scoreless until the seventh inning.
The Spartans took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first when junior Aaron Cain scored on a groundout by freshman Rocco Maue. Case Western Reserve added three more runs in the third, with junior Josh Neal scoring on a wild pitch, freshman Mike Najmowicz crossing the plate on an error, and junior Tony Damiano scoring on a balk. In the fifth, freshman Jacob Kucia singled to score Damiano, extending the lead to 5-0.
Wooster got on the board in the top of the seventh, but sophomore reliever Nate Glasser got out of trouble in the inning with a line drive double play with the bases loaded. Sophomore Liam Killingstad closed out the game with two scoreless innings, securing the victory for the Spartans.
Damiano finished the game two-for-three with a double and a pair of runs scored, while Cain added two hits in three at bats.
The Fighting Scots dropped to 14-8 on the season with the loss. Wooster starter Michael Houdek took the loss, falling to 3-2 on the year.
Game 2: CWRU 8, JCU 5
The Spartans' bats erupted for 15 hits in the second game of the day on Sunday, as Case Western Reserve bested John Carroll 8-5 for its second win in three games this season against the Blue Streaks.
Senior Eddie Abramson pitched 2.2 solid innings of relief to pick up his first win of the season, and junior Andrew Rossman pitched the final 2.2 innings to secure his first career save.
Cain, Maue and Kucia each had three hits in the game, and four different Spartans – Cain, sophomore Daniel Watson, Najmowicz and junior Eric Eldred – registered a triple.
Najmowicz's triple in the second inning would setup the first run of the game, as he would score a batter later on a sacrifice fly from Damiano. In the third, Cain tripled and scored on a groundout by Neal, and after a single by Maue, Watson hit his three-bagger to plate Maue. After John Carroll put a pair on the board in the fourth to cut the lead to 3-2, the Spartans batted around in the bottom of the fifth, scoring four runs to take a 7-2 advantage.
The Blue Streaks cut the lead back to three with a pair of runs in the seventh, but a single by Maue in the eighth scored Cain to increase the CWRU lead to 8-4. A run in the ninth proved to be too little too late for the Blue Streaks.
Drake Hlavin took the loss in relief for John Carroll, falling to 0-1 on the season, as the Blue Streaks dropped to 13-15 overall during the campaign.