UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS, Ohio – Another pair of quality pitching starts guided the Otterbein baseball team to nine-straight victories inside Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC) play Saturday on the road, with the most recent installment being 4-3 and 8-5 results against host John Carroll.

The Cardinals, advancing to 23-9 overall and 11-3 against the league, now take over sole possession of first place atop the OAC standings after Marietta suffered a doubleheader sweep at Ohio Northern. Otterbein is currently two full games up on ONU and Baldwin Wallace and three games ahead in the win column over Marietta, which plays a make-up twinbill against Wilmington on Sunday.

The Cards received a strong effort on the bump in game one from senior right-hander Craig Prince, who allowed just one earned run and five hits over seven innings.  He struck out six batters.

John Carroll (16-13, 7-7 OAC) took a 1-0 lead in the third inning on a failed pick-off attempt, but Otterbein eventually countered with three runs in the fifth on a sequence that began with senior second baseman Mitch Stotler hitting his first-career home run over the fence in right field. Bryan Stopar and Connor Brett followed with RBI hits of their own to put the Cards on top for good.

The Blue Streaks trailed 4-1 but made things very interesting late, loading the bases with no outs in the seventh but managing just one run in the attempted rally. Prince induced a double-play groundout to eliminate the jam.

Closer Collin Hoffmann entered to pitch a 1-2-3 eighth inning before hitting trouble in the ninth. JCU started with consecutive singles and then getting both runners into scoring position on a sacrifice bunt, but Hoffman ultimately sealed the deal for his third save of the year. He allowed an RBI groundout and then fanned the final batter swinging with the tying run 90 feet away.

Otterbein saw a dominant performance in the second outing from senior left-hander Stevie Yuran, who tossed 7.2 innings of shutout ball as the Cards completed a sweep. He struck out 10, scattered just five hits and was actually charged with a pair of runs in the eighth after giving way to his bullpen with runners on.

The Cardinals grabbed an early 1-0 lead on an RBI from Stopar and then found some nice breathing room in the fourth, bringing six runs around on four RBI-singles and an RBI-double off the bat of Stotler for a 7-0 lead.

John Carroll was later down 8-0 but strung together a two-out rally following Yuran's exit in the eighth, batting around the lineup, scoring five runs and then loading the bases as Otterbein used four pitchers in the frame. The last arm would be Hoffmann, who eventually ended the frame and then persevered through a few issues in the ninth to leave the bases loaded again.

Stopar hit 3 for 5 in the second game while Stotler and Brett had three-hit days across the two matchups.

Otterbein, winners in 12 of its last 14, will host Thomas More in a non-conference game on Wednesday before Baldwin Wallace come to Westerville next weekend.