ANDY GOTTESMAN/THE LANTERN
Ohio State junior Zach Hurley slides into home during Tuesday's game with Xavier and is tagged out. OSU won the game 9-7. Over the weekend the Buckeyes lost two out of three games to Minnesota. The No. 18 Ohio State baseball team struggled this weekend, losing two out of three to the Minnesota Golden Gophers.
The series left the Buckeyes with an overall record of 22-7 and 3-3 in the Big Ten.
In their first game Friday night, the Buckeyes were defeated by a score of 7-5. It marked the first time all season the Buckeyes had recorded back-to-back losses.
The Buckeyes scored first on Zach Hurley's 34th RBI of the season in the third inning giving the Buckeyes a 1-0 lead. But that was the last lead that OSU would have. The Gophers stormed back scoring three runs in the bottom half of the third to take a 3-1 lead. They would add four more runs for the day. OSU tried to make it interesting by scoring a run in the seventh and adding three runs in the eighth. Ryan Dew hit a two-out two-run single scoring Michael Stephens and Dan Burkhart to cut the lead to 7-4. They added one more run on a line drive off the bat of Michael Arp, scoring Dew from first.
The Buckeyes loaded the bases with one out in the ninth but failed to score.
With the loss, Wimmers is 5-1 for the season.
Saturday's game saw a thriller between the two squads. The Buckeyes started things off early on a Justin Miller two-run homer. The homerun was Miller's fifth of the season and gave the Buckeyes the early 2-0 lead. OSU got another run late in the game on a Michael Stephens homerun to leftfield. Stephens's big day included three hits, two runs scored and an RBI.
The Buckeyes pitching staff of Dean Wolosiansky, Drew Rucinsky and Jake Hale combined on a six-hitter, allowing only two runs throughout the day. Minnesota hitters went 0-for-15 at the plate with runners in a scoring position, an important stat considering that the Gophers had runners in scoring position in every inning but the second.
"I was really pleased with our pitching," said coach Bob Todd. "Our pitching did a good job, Wolosiansky dodged some bullets early, they had some people in scoring position but he was able to pitch around that. Then Drew Rucinsky and Jake Hale came in and did a great job for us in relief."
The Buckeyes held on by a score of 3-2. Wolosiansky got the win and improved his record to 6-1 for the year. He pitched 5.2 innings of three-hit one-run baseball.
The Buckeyes sent out Eric Best to pitch Sunday but he didn't last through the second inning as the Gophers scored a run in the first and seven runs in the second to take an early 8-0 lead.
"Eric Best just didn't have it today. We were just never able get any momentum back in our dugout," Todd said. "We just never got any momentum going at all."
The team went on to score three runs in the fifth inning off of four hits, and that was it offensively. Matt Toussant had a run-scoring double and then Tyler Engle drove Toussant home with a single. A third run was scored off of a throwing error.
Minnesota went on to score 16 runs and win 16-3. The loss marked the worst defeat of the season for the Buckeyes.
Next up for the team is a home game against Morehead State on Wednesday at 6:35 p.m.
Nathan Schlabach can be reached at schlabach.15@osu.edu.
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