Eagles Complete Season Baseball Sweep of Hillsdale
April 21, 2005

Complete Box Scores
Game 1        Game 2

It was a day late, but the Eagles weren’t a dollar short.

The Ashland University baseball team wasn’t on the money for all of Thursday afternoon (April 21) at Donges Field, but the Eagles were good enough to take a twinbill from Hillsdale. AU downed the Chargers, 3-2 and 5-4. The wins Thursday allowed the Eagles to sweep this year’s four-game series with Hillsdale.

Ashland is 25-13, 6-4 in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. Hillsdale is 11-21 and 8-14.

Senior righthander Todd Martinelli carried the day for the Eagles in the first game. AU needed Martinelli to eat some innings and provide a quality start. Martinelli did that by lasting 5 1/3 innings. He raised his record to 3-4, allowing two runs on three hits. Martinelli walked three and struck out one. He pitched five scoreless innings before tiring in the fifth. Martinelli turned the game over to Josh Davidson, who went the rest of the way to record his team-high sixth save.

The Eagles didn’t exactly sting the ball all over the park, the HC tandem of Kacey Gaffner and Andy Lovell limited them to six hits. Gaffner (0-5) took the loss, allowing all three runs on six hits in five innings. No one had more than one hit for the Eagles. AU scored one run on a throwing error by catcher Lance Boehm and Gaffner balked home another run. The Chargers hurt themselves with three errors.

The second game was tied, 4-4 until AU pushed across the go-ahead run in the bottom of the fifth inning. That decisive tally came home on a single to center field by designated hitter Ray Frisbee. His hit brought home David Waters, who had walked and move to third on a single by Troy Reeder.

HC struck first, scoring two unearned runs in the second inning and adding a pair of runs in the fourth. The Eagles scored four times in the second inning. Davidson had a double in the frame and Adam Wilson and Jim Barry added singles. Barry finished the game 3-for-3 with a double. Reeder was 2-for-4.

Ryan Petrich went four innings and earned the victory, running his record to 6-1. Lek Cole pitched one-hit baseball over the last three innings to pick up his initial save of the season.

Starter Dennis Czuchaj (0-1) was saddled with the loss. He pitched three innings before yielding in favor of Lovell. Czuchaj allowed five runs on six hits. He walked three and struck out two. While the Chargers had a total of five errors in the two games, they did douse numerous AU rallies in the second game by turning four double plays.

Jeff Dubey led the Chargers at the plate in the second game by going 2-for-3.

The Eagles are back in action over the weekend at Saginaw Valley State (April 23-24), playing the Cardinals in a four-game series.