Baseball Drops 2-0 Decision to Wittenberg

By Jim Fenton

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. -- For the second straight game, the Bridgewater State University baseball team was shutout and fell to 0-4 on Sunday morning.

The Bears were limited to five singles and lost to Wittenberg University of Springfield, Ohio, 2-0, at the Polo Grounds.

BSU had opened its spring break trip by losing a doubleheader to Ursinus College of Pennsylvania on Saturday.

Playing their third game in less than 20 hours, the Bears struck out 15 times against Tigers' pitching and made three errors.

Winning pitcher Andrew Rust (Dublin, Ohio), a junior, went the first five innings, allowing three hits with seven strikeouts. Freshman Wade Thewes (Parker, Col.) had six strikeouts in his three innings.

Senior closer Charlie Schafer (Beavercreek, Ohio) worked around a one-out single in the ninth to record his third save of the season. Schafer fanned two of the four batters he faced.

Losing pitcher Trey Yesu (Monson, Mass.) went six innings, giving up two unearned runs and seven hits. The junior struck out six.

Reliever Cameron Breault (Buzzards Bay, Mass.), a senior, gave up two hits in his two innings.

Wittenberg (6-2) scored single runs in the second and third innings.

In the second, junior James MacAuley (Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich.) singled up the middle and senior Rocco Royer (Lake Bluff, Ill.) followed with a line single to center that was mishandled allowing MacAuley to advance to third.

A sacrifice fly to center field by graduate student Luke Thomas (Tallmadge, Ohio) made it 1-0.

The Tigers' other run in the third came when sophomore Xander Rodriguez (Salinas, Puerto Rico) singled to center, went to second on a groundout and scored on an infield throwing error.

BSU's hits included a two-out single in the third by junior Danny Jasmin (East Meadow, N.Y.), a leadoff single to right-center field by junior Ryan Flaherty (Duxbury, Mass.) in the fourth, a leadoff single to right in the fifth by senior Brendan Flaven (Taunton, Mass.), an infield hit by senior Scott Emerson (Peabody, Mass.) in the sixth and a one-out single to right-center in the ninth by senior Kevin Lindsay (East Bridgewater, Mass.).

Thomas, Royer and Rodriguez had two hits each for Wittenberg, who had nine in the game.

The Bears began the season with a road loss to UMass Boston and have dropped three in a row on the spring break trip.

BSU continues its schedule by playing Penn College of Williamsport, Pa., at Pelicans Stadium on Monday at 1:30 p.m.