Rio Grande Sports Information
RIO GRANDE, Ohio - The University of Rio Grande picked a bad day to have a bad day.
Oakland City University took advantage of some shaky pitching by the RedStorm and some even shakier defense by the home team to sweep their River States Conference baseball doubleheader, Sunday afternoon, at Bob Evans Field.
The Mighty Oaks won the nine-inning opener, 8-2, before posting an 11-0 win in the seven-inning nightcap.
Oakland City, which was among the teams receiving votes in the latest NAIA Top 25 coaches' poll, improved to 25-8 overall and 10-4 in conference play with the wins.
Rio Grande dropped to 16-16 overall and 3-11 against league foes with the two losses.
Over the course of the twin bill, RedStorm pitchers issued 17 walks, tossed four wild pitches and hit two batters.
Defensively, seven errors - including five in the nightcap - led to eight of the 19 runs surrendered on the day being unearned.
In the opener, the Mighty Oaks did the bulk of their damage in two innings by scoring four times in the third and three times in the sixth.
Nahzir Bergen hit a two-run home run in the third and had a two-run double in the sixth, while Marcos Arocho had a run-scoring single in the third and a sacrifice fly in the sixth.
Charlie Hoffman finished 3-for-5 with a pair of doubles in the victory, while Eric Correa was 3-for-5 with a double.
Matt Lightfall started and got the win for Oakland City, allowing five hits and two runs over seven innings while striking out six.
Redshirt freshman Logan Martin (Wellston, OH), the first of five Rio hurlers, took the loss. He allowed eight hits and seven runs - five earned - over 5-1/3 innings. He walked four and fanned five.
Freshman KB Perkins (Chillicothe, OH) went 2-for-3 in the loss, including the first home run of his collegiate career.
Senior Josiah Devapalan (Brampton, Ontario, Canada) also had two hits for the RedStorm.
Game two followed much of the same suit, with the visitors scoring four times in the fourth inning and added five more markers in the seventh.
Despite its double-digit scoring total, Oakland City had just five hits in the win - the biggest of which was a pinch-hit three-run double by Mason Simon in the seventh inning.
Correa finished 2-for-3 with a run batted in for the Mighty Oaks, while Bergen had a double and Simon Gaines drove in two runs.
Landen Ray started and got the win for OCU, allowing to hits and two walks with seven strikeouts over five scoreless innings.
Redshirt junior Jacob Napier (Alexandria, KY), one of seven Rio pitchers, took the loss. He allowed two hits and walked five, while allowing four unearned runs over 3-2/3 innings.
The RedStorm managed just four singles offensively.
The two teams will complete their weather-delayed weekend series on Monday with a single nine-inning contest scheduled for a 1 p.m. first pitch.
