Chillicothe, Ohio – The Oberlin College baseball team is headed to its first-ever North Coast Athletic Conference Championship after defeating the 11^th ranked Scots of Wooster, 11-6, on Thursday afternoon at VA Memorial Stadium.
 
The Yeomen roughed up Scots pitching to the tune of 15 hits. Game-one hero Ryan Bliss and junior catcher Blaise Dolcemashio were each 3-for-4, while the senior trio of Jeff Schweighoffer, Andrew Hutson and Benjamin Whitener added two hits each.
 
Freshman pitcher Sean Kiley moved to 5-3 on the year as he kept the potent Scots lineup in check for 7.1 innings. He allowed seven hits, five runs (four earned) while fanning five and walking one. After a rocky first inning, the Studio City, California, native kept Wooster off the board until the eighth.
 
After the Scots plated two in the first, the Yeomen would cut the deficit in half on a bases-loaded infield single by Bliss. Oberlin would go on to take the lead in the second and would never trail again in the game.
 
The Yeomen bats came to life for five runs on five hits in the second with Whitener delivering the crushing blow with a line-drive three-run home run over the wall in right. Prior to the bomb, Dolcemaschio scored on an fielder's choice and Hutson also had a run-scoring double to send Justin Cruz across the dish.
 
Oberlin would increase its lead with single tallies in the third and the fifth to make it an 8-2 game. Dolcemaschio started the third with a double and would later score on a groundout by Schweighoffer. In the fifth it was Dolcemaschio who drove in the run with a single back up the box to score Bliss.
 
While all the offense was going on, it was easy to forget that Kiley surrendered just one hit in innings three through seven.
 
The Yeomen continued to add on with two in the sixth and one in the seventh to conclude their scoring for the game. Kyle Decker reached on an error in the sixth and would score on Hutson's triple to the gap in right center. He would then walk home on Whitener's single to left center. The Yeomen's final run came courtesy of Decker's opposite-field double down the left field line.
 
Kiley would run into some trouble in the eighth, as three out of the first four hitters would reach base with a run coming across, chasing him from the game.  Jordan Cohen was unable to retire the two batters he faced, so Head Coach Adrian Abrahamowicz was forced to turn to Milo Sklar to finish the inning, but not before three runs would come across to make it an 11-5 game.  Sklar got of the bases-loaded one-out situation by getting Kenny Reckart to ground into an inning-ending 4-3 double play as Mitch Novak gloved the bouncing ball over the middle touched second and threw over to first to short-circuit the threat.
Sklar walked the lead-off hitter in the ninth, but would retire the next two hitters. Down to his final strike, Jamie Lackner would come through with an RBI single, but Sklar would strikeout John McLain looking to end the game.
 
The Yeomen are in the NCAC Championship game on Friday at 2 p.m. Whoever advances there - be it Wooster, Allegheny, or Ohio Wesleyan – will have to beat the Yeomen twice to claim the NCAC crown. Be sure to check goyeo.com for links to live coverage of the game.