Archive for the ‘Baseball’ Category

The Griffon baseball team used some timely hitting and stellar pitching performances to sweep a four game series from the Pittsburg State Gorillas last weekend.

Coming into the weekend, Western needed to play better than they had and take at least three of the four games from Pitt State and did just that.

The first game started with Western sending freshmen pitcher Oliver Kadey to the mound and he set the tone for the rest of the series for the Griffons. Kadey threw a complete game shutout against the Gorillas in a 2-0 victory.

Senior Danny Conners eyes a pitch during a Western baseball game. The Griffons defeated Pittsburg State this weekend 4-0 and kept their conference tournament hopes alive. Photo | Sara Baum

Game two provided a little more offense as the Griffons took the game 9-4 behind Isaac Rome’s four RBI’s including his 11th homerun of the year.
Western finished the series in a wild game Sunday night which they won 12-11 in 11 innings. The pitching staff, as well as the whole team, were running on fumes by the time the series came to an end.

“Andy Hebrard came into the last game Sunday giving us everything he had and we were able to ride out the emotional roller coaster and win it in 11 innings,” head coach Buzz Verduzco said.

The Griffons fought back to tie the game in the eighth inning behind Hebrard. Hebrard gave up a three run home run to center field in the top of the 11th to put the Griffons down 11-8 going into their final at bat.

Western used three hits to score four runs in their final at bat of the 11th inning to score the comeback win. Atkinson delivered the game winning hit on a RBI single to left center field to cap off the win.

Hebrard earned the win as he pitched 5.1 innings, giving up four earned runs on five hits but also struck out six batters in his fifth win of the season.

“This sweep was huge for us,” Hebrard said. “Pitching a long relief was something I wanted and so it wasn’t a big deal.”

Western knew they would have to sweep Pitt State in order to keep their post-season hopes alive.

“We were pretty emotionally drained after that series,” Hebrard said.

The Griffons will now take a few days rest and then face Emporia State on Friday and Saturday.in two double headers.

Fundamentals are one of the keys to being successful in baseball and last Wednesday the Griffons struggled with playing fundamentally sound. The Griffons had three errors and only six hits, which led to 8-2 loss to Rockhurst University last Wednesday at Phil Welch Stadium.

Billy Waldman catches a fly ball during Western’s game against Rockhurst last Wednesday. The Griffons lost the game 8-2 and struggled with errors during the game. Photo | Matt Fowler

Western could only answer with a single in the bottom of the first and would only get three hits over the first five innings.

“Kind of all year we’ve had a struggle with our at bats and tonight was really no different,” head coach Buzz Verduzco said.

On the mound Wednesday night was senior Blake Thomas, the veteran pitcher who went six innings and gave up eight runs. That seemed to be the problem for Western, because only three of those runs were earned.

“The errors kind of got us,” Verduzco said. “They kind of deflated us.”

On the hill for Rockhurst was Alex Seier. Seier went seven innings giving up five hits, one earned run and one strikeout. Leading Rockhurst at the plate was first baseman Ryan Porter. Porter went 4-5 from the plate with two big homeruns that really took the wind out of Western’s sails. Porter was the only player from Rockhurst with more than one hit in the game and a lot of that has to due with the way that Thomas pitched. If you take away the errors for Western, then you’re looking at a one run ball game.

Offensively for the Griffons, they struggled mightily at getting the bat on the ball. There was no Griffon with more than one hit and it wasn’t until the seventh inning that the Griffons were able to get a run across the plate.

In the game the Griffons left eight runners on base – when you do that it becomes very hard for a team to win baseball games. Western managed to get one more run in the eighth off a Scott Groner single.

“Hopefully we can take a few days off, regroup and get ready for the conference run,” Verduzco said. “But we don’t know what that’s going to be yet.”

The Griffons will play the University of Nebraska-Omaha in a double header on Wednesday, April 21 and then will have a double header against Pittsburg State on Friday, April 24.

The Griffons played host to Central Missouri last weekend and were swept in a four game series by the Mules.

The first game of the series started on Thursday afternoon in a close game that the Mules were able to take 4-3 in after an unusual error on the infield let the winning run score from second base. Western was able to take an early 3-0 lead on the second-ranked team in the nation as they capitalized on three Mule errors. UCM showed why they were the number two team in the nation, however, as the Mule pitching staff held the Griffons scoreless the rest of the game and only gave up two hits.

The second game of the double header was not as close as the Mules dominated the Griffons and winning the game 15-4.

Andy Hebrard bunts the ball during Western’s game two weeks ago against Northwest. This week when the Griffons played Central, they lost the series 0-4. Photo | Sara Baum

Freshman Scott Groner also chipped in with his first home run as a Griffon and also had three RBI’s in the game. Western committed three errors in the fourth inning that helped the Mules to tie up the game at three after the Griffons had taken an early 3-1 lead. Western also struggled with getting runners home in the game leaving nine runners on base.

“I was very happy with the performance we got from Brandon Simmons in the game and I think that we showed some fight in two of the games and in the other two they really showed why they are ranked second in the nation,” head coach Buzz Verduzco said.

Pitcher Andy Hebrard was disappointed with how the weekend went.

“This weekend didn’t go how we wanted it to,” Hebrard said. “We have to flush it out and keep working hard. We need to keep our heads up and know we have our chance to get ourselves back in it.”

Western falls to 13-15 overall and 7-15 in the MIAA. Western will continue their conference schedule on April 9-10 as they host Truman State University at Phil Welch Stadium.

The Missouri Western Griffons traveled to Bolivar, Missouri, the weekend of March 5 to take on Southwest Baptist University and dominated the field as they swept them 4-0.

After losing all four games against Fort Hays the weekend before, the Griffons were looking to turn things around and improve their record.

After getting the right mindset going into the games, everything else just clicked.

Senior Trevor Hannum prepares to bat during a Western game last year. This past weekend, the Griffons swept SBU 4-0. Photo | Marty Ayers

The games Friday ended positively for the Griffons when they won 4-2 and 8-0. The good start helped raise the confidence of the team and end the meeting with the Bearcats with a four-game sweep.

“The wins helped our confidence a lot, because you never want to start out conference 0-4 and it gives us a lot of momentum leading into playing the rest of our conference series at home,” said senior pitcher Corey White.

The Griffons just simply outplayed Southern Baptist the whole weekend, having stellar pitching performances by Andrew Hebrard, John Cochran and Chris Sundvold

They also produced their first errorless game as a team, which helped immensely.

“That was big for us as a team, the wins this week helped us get closer to finding our identity,” Hannum said.

The winning streak against Southwest Baptist continued on Saturday as the Griffons pulled out two wins: 9-3 and 6-2.

Both teams got close to an equal amount of hits all four games, with Western garnishing up 38 and SBU making contact 32 times. Yet, Western was able to take advantage of their hits and contribute more runs than the Bearcats.

“Our defense played a lot better than we did against Fort Hays,” White said.

The team expects to take the momentum of the sweep and turn it into positive play for the remainder of the season. After the successful weekend, Griffon baseball improved their record to 6-4 overall and 4-4 in conference play, while Southern Baptist dropped to 2-13 overall and 1-7 in the conference.

The Griffons finally will play ball in St. Joseph territory on Saturday, March 13, against Missouri Southern.