Sports

Ohio Baseball earns dominant 12-4 victory in series opener against Akron

By: Maria Monesi
Posted on: Sunday, May 8, 2022

Ohio Baseball's Mason Minzey prepares to swing his bat, looking to get on base. — Ohio Baseball’s Mason Minzey steps up to the plate against Akron [Maria Monesi | WOUB

ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) – Ohio Baseball began its four game series against Akron Saturday afternoon. The Bobcats were on a roll in the bottom of the first inning where they scored four runs in the frame alone.

Prime pitching from Eddie Kutt kept the Bobcats on top. Kutt pitched eight innings, had eight strikeouts and was dominant. He didn’t let anything get by him and continued to do what he does well even when Akron made the game close.

“Even when the game got tight he still went out there and did well,” Head Coach Craig Moore said. “Got us some weak contact and obviously eight strikeouts and it was big, but yeah it was good to see him give us another quality start.”

Akron tied the game up at four in the top of the sixth frame, but Ohio responded as its bats heated up.

A home run from Harrison Johnson got things started for the Bobcats in the bottom of the sixth frame. The home run propelled the Bobcats as they scored eight total runs in the inning alone, including another home run, this time from Nick Dolan.

“We kind of let them back in the game, let them hang around a little bit,” Johnson said. “For me, I was leading off the inning, just thought about getting on base for my teammates and competing as coach Mcguire always says and that ended up starting a pretty good rally.”

“We needed to answer back,” Moore said. “That’s kind of our process and our philosophy is to answer back to kind of get back the momentum and our offense as a whole, they did a great job that inning to get the momentum back on our side and we were able to get some separation there and able to hold on.”

Ohio took the series opener 12-4 and will look to continue its momentum with a twin bill on Sunday. Despite the victory, there are improvements that can be made in order to take the series.

“Our defensive effort today,” Moore said. “We weren’t real clean, we had a couple wild pitches and a passed ball, and a couple errors in the infield. Those are things we have too correct and we have to continue to keep getting better and working on it.”

With only a few series left, the MAC tournament is getting closer and closer. Ohio will continue to fight for a spot in the final stretch of its regular season.