Baseball Chargers snap Northwood’s 15-game winning streak, drop series

By Jillian Parks Social Media Manager

The Hillsdale baseball team went 1-3 against the top-ranked G-MAC team, Northwood University, April 7-8.

The team split its first doubleheader and lost both of its games in the second by a single run. Despite taking away a single win, the Chargers are celebrating, as they ended the 15-game winning streak of the undefeated Northwood Timberwolves, junior centerfielder Danny Passinault said.

“We played two really close games on Saturday, which both could’ve gone our way but unfortunately ended up losing both,” senior shortstop Aidan Brewer said. “Our pitching staff did a really, really great job this weekend giving us a chance to win three games, but they also had a really good pitching staff and we just weren’t able to score enough to win. Overall, we played really well and just couldn’t get as many wins as we would’ve liked.”

The Chargers lost the first doubleheader game 12-2 but came back for a 5-4 win in the second game. Closing pitcher junior Zane Barnhart pitched six and one-third innings in relief for the second game on Friday, surrendering one infield single and three total baserunners while throwing seven strikeouts.

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“Our pitching was very good this weekend, with Zane Barnhart, Tommy MacLean, and Will Gifford all going the distance and pitching some phenomenal games,” Passinault said. “Northwood’s pitching staff was one of the best we have faced all year, and they held our offense in check for most of the weekend. We were just a couple key hits away from winning some of the games this weekend, and we know this weekend is nothing to hang our heads about because we competed very well against one of the top teams in the conference.”

On Saturday, starting pitcher sophomore Tommy MacLean pitched six and one-third innings with five strikeouts, two walks, and three earned runs surrendered, but the Timberwolves clinched the victory after tying the game during the sixth inning and securing a walk-off hit with two outs in the bottom of the seventh.

The Chargers tied the second game of the day 1-1 with a hit in the bottom of the seventh, but Northwood took the lead permanently in the bottom of the eighth with a game-winning run and a fielding error by the Chargers.

“You never want to be on the losing end of a series, but we played in some very close, winnable ball games,” head coach Tom Vessella said. “If a few bounces went our way, we very easily could have been on the winning side. Northwood is a very good team and deserves to be at the top of the league, but we played them tough the whole weekend.”

The Chargers also played Central Michigan University April 11, losing 15-6.

“It was a cool experience getting an opportunity to go up against a DI opponent,” MacLean said. “I thought we did some things well. We hit the ball around offensively creating some runs and played pretty good defense overall. We struggled a bit as a pitching staff finding the strike zone, we needed to continue to focus on each pitch in order to get outs. We have a lot of talent and, if we do things right, we are very hard to beat.”

The Chargers will play Lake Erie College April 15-16 in a four game series. They will also play one game against Saginaw Valley State University April 18 and one against Grand Valley State University April 19.

“We have a lot of baseball to play this week, and if we play up to our potential, we have a good shot at winning a lot of ball games,” Vessella said. “I am just praying that the weather cooperates this weekend.”