NILES, Ohio – Setting a season-high in runs and tying their best mark of the year with 14 hits, the Oakland Golden Grizzlies defeated the Youngstown State Penguins, 13-10, in the first game of a doubleheader at Eastwood Field on Friday, March 17.
Picking up their first Horizon League victory of the 2023 campaign, the Golden Grizzlies snap a two-game skid and improve to 6-10 (1-1), while Youngstown State drops to 4-14 (1-1).
Sophomore right-hander
Hunter Pidek made his third start of the year for Oakland, throwing 84 pitches over his five innings and allowing just one run on three hits with a pair of walks and three strikeouts.
Leading the Golden Grizzlies in both ERA at 2.65 and WHIP at 1.12, opposing batters are hitting just .167 off Pidek over 17 innings this season.
Taking over for Pidek in the sixth, junior righty
Brandon Decker picked up his team-leading third win, working 2.2 innings and giving up five runs on eight hits with a walk and three strikeouts.
Graduate student
Christian Stelling and junior
Jake Matthaidess, both left-handers, each threw two-thirds of an inning to finish the game.
Austintown, Ohio redshirt junior lefty reliever Kenny Misik took the loss for the Penguins and falls to 0-2. After allowing five earned runs in each of his first four starts, junior right-hander Nick Perez turned in his best start of 2023, finishing with a line of two runs (one earned) on six hits with three walks and four strikeouts over 5.1 innings.
Extending his club-best hit streak to five games, redshirt senior shortstop
Thomas Green led the Oakland offense with a 4-6, four-RBI performance. Recording both a double and triple, he also registered two-run singles in consecutive innings in the seventh and eighth.
Dating to the victory over the Southern Indiana Screaming Eagles on March 11, Green, a native Canadian, is hitting .550 (11-20) over the last four games with three doubles, a triple, six RBI and two stolen bases.
Sophomore second baseman
Peter Jelenic went 3-4 with two doubles and an RBI in Game 1 Friday and freshman center fielder
Reggie Bussey, graduate student first baseman
Gabe Lux and redshirt sophomore right fielder
Reagan Paulina tallied two hits apiece.
Driving in Paulina with a single to left for the Golden Grizzlies' ninth run of the game in the ninth, Bussey collected both his first career RBI and first multi-hit game.
With Youngstown State scoring four runs in the bottom of the ninth, Lux ended up providing one of the biggest hits of the day, a bases-clearing double in the top of the frame that doubled the Oakland lead from three to six.
STATISTICAL NOTES
- 3-7 (.429) over the first two games of this series with the Penguins, Lux has brought his season batting average back above .300 to .308 (16-52)
- There is now a four-way tie for the team lead in stolen bases, with senior Ian Cleary, redshirt sophomore Drew Collins, Green and Jelenic all at four
- Green now has sole possession of the team lead in RBI at 14. He entered Game 1 Friday tied with graduate student Jared Miller at 10
- Decker is the only Golden Grizzly pitcher with multiple victories in 2023 and has appeared in a club-high nine games
- Pidek's three strikeouts Friday give him 17 on the season, second-most on the team behind only Decker's 20
UP NEXT
The first pitch of Friday's nightcap was at approximately 7:30 p.m.
Senior left-hander
Travis Densmore (0-2, 12.06 ERA, 15.2 IP) started for Oakland, while freshman righty Aidan English (1-1, 10.50 ERA, 6 IP) went for Youngstown State.
