BASEBALL

After a pair of victories on Friday, the #RV HU baseball team logged two more wins, 9-3, 4-2, to complete the four-game sweep over the Goshen Maples Leafs (3-30, 2-22) Monday afternoon at Forester Glen.

The Foresters are now 24-8 overall, 17-7 in league play.

Joey Butz tossed the first five frames of game one to claim the win on the bump. He gave up six hits, three runs and three walks while striking out five before Gabe Freeman offered four innings of scoreless relief to pick up the save.

After Owen Young doubled in Jarret Gray in the bottom of the second to kick off HU’s scoring, Camden Dice belted one over the right field fence with one on to make it a 3-0 contest. It was at that point that the top of the order took over at the plate.

Ian McCutcheon, batting second, and Daniel Lichty, in the three-hole, each knocked in a run to cap off the Foresters’ most productive inning for a 5-0 lead after two. It was McCutcheon’s first of two hits with his second, a triple to deep right-center in the eighth, pushing two runs across the plate. McCutcheon finished with two hits and three RBI.

Just prior to McCutcheon’s three-bagger, lead-off Langston Ginder logged an RBI-single. It was Ginder’s third hit of the afternoon while HU’s clean-up Satchell Wilson added a hit and RBI in a game that the Foresters led throughout.

Unlike the opener, the nightcap was up for grabs through the first four frames. Huntington struck first in its opening at-bat. Ginder led off with a double to left-center, advanced to third on a sac bunt and then wheeled it home on a wild pitch.

The Maple Leafs’ counter was swift thanks to Bobby Garcia’s two-run homer in the top of the second. The guests held the advantage until the fourth when Ginder’s RBI-fielder’s choice brought Alex McCutcheon, who started things off with a single to center, home for a 2-2 stalemate.

Lichty reclaimed his team’s lead with a bomb over the right field fence to open the fifth. Wilson kept things going for Frame’s crew by singling up the middle, swiping second and third and then cruising home on Jarret Gray’s bloop single. It proved only an insurance run as the Maple Leafs’ only offense the rest of the way was drawing a walk.

After Brent Trent spent the first four innings on the mound, reliever Max Meisner took over to work the next 1.2 frames for his first collegiate win. The rookie hurler did not surrender a hit and struck out two while issuing four walks. Mason Shinabery polished off Goshen by working the final out of the sixth and then working a 1-2-3 seventh for the save.

Wilson and Alex McCutcheon combined for five of Huntington’s ten hits.

The Foresters hit the road this weekend to take on #23 Indiana Wesleyan. The Wildcats currently sit atop the league with a 21-3 CL record.