The Oglethorpe baseball team wound up its stay at the RussMatt Central Florida Invitational in exciting fashion Saturday morning, defeating Central (Iowa) 4-3 with a walkoff single in the ninth inning from sophomore center fielder Britton Araujo. The victory improved the Stormy Petrels to 10-6 on the season and moved them to 3-2 to finish their spring break trip.
The two teams went back and forth Saturday morning at the Lake Myrtle Sports Complex in Auburndale, Florida, the Petrels taking a couple of leads and the Dutch fighting back to tie the game both times. The game went to the ninth inning tied 3-3.
Junior right-hander Justin Thigpen set Central down with ease in the top half of the inning, and the bottom half began very well for the Petrels. Senior second baseman Keith Dearden walked to lead off the inning, bringing sophomore pinch hitter Corey Hamm to the plate. Hamm's job was to bunt Dearden over to second base and he succeeded in that, but the Petrels got much more out of it than that, as a Central error moved Dearden up to third and put Hamm on second with nobody out. After a strikeout, Araujo stroked the game-winning single through the right side of the infield, scoring the unearned run and giving the Petrels the 4-3 victory.
The Petrels were going against Central pitcher Dylan Diveney, who earned All-Central Region Third Team and Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Pitcher of the Year accolades as a freshman in 2015. Oglethorpe was able to scratch out a 2-run lead against him through the first five innings. In the third, junior shortstop Gabriel Selochan doubled to lead off the inning and Araujo hit an infield single to follow, putting runners at first and second with nobody out. A pair of fielder's-choice groundballs brought Selochan home with the game's first run. They then doubled their lead in the fifth when Araujo tripled with two outs and subsequently scored on a wild pitch.
Meanwhile, the Dutch were unable to get anything going through the first five innings onOglethorpe freshman starter Tristen Powell. In his first career start, he scattered four hits and did not allow a run through five innings of work, hitting a batter, walking two, and striking out three. He wound up with a no decision after Central tied the game.
Central did so on an Oglethorpe error in the sixth, but the Petrels answered back with another run off of Diveney in the bottom half of the inning. Sophomore catcher Adrian Celata and junior right fielder Brandon Fish sandwiched a walk and a single between a couple of outs. Then with two outs,Dearden doubled down the left field line to bring Celata home and give the Petrels a 3-2 lead. The Dutch tied the game again with a single run in the eighth.
Thigpen picked up the victory, improving himself to 2-0 on the season. He pitched two innings, allowing a single run on two hits, a walk and a hit batsman.
Araujo went 3 for 4 on the morning for the Petrels, collecting a triple, the game-winning RBI, and a run scored.
"I'm very proud of our effort and of the grit this team showed," said Oglethorpe head coach Dan Giordano. "We were facing maybe one of the top pitchers in the country and we battled him the whole way. This was a successful trip for us in many ways, and I think we are starting to find our groove. Powell was very impressive in his first college start and Araujo had a couple of huge hits for us."
The Petrels will now return home to take on Piedmont on Tuesday at 7 p.m. at Anderson Field. After that, they'll travel to Montgomery, Alabama, on Wednesday to go against Huntingdon before taking another road trip over the weekend, this one to Conway, Arkansas, to take on Hendrix as they get back into SAA play.