Panthers Lose in Extra Innings to Wright State

The Milwaukee Panther’s Baseball team lost 4-3 against first place Wright State Saturday at Miller Park, home of the Milwaukee Brewers.

The Panthers came into Saturday after a 3-0 win at home against Chicago State, and four wins in their last five games, according to the team’s website.

The Panthers started the game hot and collected three hits in the first inning, including an RBI single from junior Matt Qaurtel that scored sophomore Trevor Schwecke. This run gave the Panthers the first lead of the game, which stayed until WSU sophomore Peyton Burdick knocked a two-run shot over the left field wall in the top of the third inning to give the Raiders the lead.

The Raiders lead was short-lived, lasting just over an inning. In the bottom of the fourth inning, Panthers sophomore Mike Ferri led off the side with a deep solo homerun over the left field wall, just his second homerun of the season. Just two batters later, junior Tyler Bordner hit a towering solo homerun deep over the left field wall, his fifth of the season.

“That fourth inning was great,” Panthers redshirt freshman Matt DeYoung said. “Mike and Tyler hit some absolute bombs, which was great for us.”

The Panthers were able to hold the lead until the top of the fifth inning, when a sacrifice fly from Burdick scored Raiders senior Morrow to tie the game at 3-3. The game stayed knotted at 3-3 through nine innings, forcing the game to go into extra innings.

Though the game stayed at a stalemate, there was not a shortage of opportunities for the two teams to score without going to extras. Both clubs missed chances in the eighth inning that would have given each of them the lead.

“I thought we gave them the game quite honestly. We continued to struggle on the bases. That was a huge part of the game,” head coach Scott Doffek said afterwards.

Panthers sophomore George Swedie came in to pitch with 2 outs in the top of the inning, and WSU runners on second and third. Swedie proceeded to strike out Raiders junior Chase Slone to end the side.

In the bottom of the inning, the Panthers had the bases loaded with one out, and attempted a suicide squeeze with freshman Mitch Buban at the plate. The Raiders threw the pitch down and out, making it almost impossible to bunt, and tagged out baserunner Tyler Bordner before he was able to score from third. Buban then ended the inning with a foul out to the Raiders’ first baseman Gabe Snyder.

Milwaukee walked only three batters throughout the first nine innings of the ballgame, but walked another three in the tenth inning alone. After a fly out to start the inning, the Panthers walked the bases loaded to bring Alex Alders to bat. On a 1-1 count, Alders hit the ball to deep center field, which allowed junior JD Orr to score from third base.

In the Panthers last chance at the plate, they went down in order, losing the game by a score of 4-3.

“I think we could have had that ball game in control,” Doffek said. “But we made outs on the bases that you can’t make. It really showed some youth.”

Youth is something the Panthers have in abundance, with 11 freshman and seven sophomores on the roster. However, while the Panthers are young, they swung the bats well against a top-tier pitcher in WSU’s Ryan Weiss, accruing ten hits throughout the innings that he pitched.

Doffek was also supportive of starting pitcher Austin Schulfer. “Schulfer wasn’t perfect but he gave us a good start, a quality start,” Doffek said. “They only had five hits for the game, I looked through ten innings.”

Though Schulfer had a solid outing in which he gave up only four hits while striking out five WSU batters through 7.2 innings, two of the three earned runs scored against him came off a walk or a hit-by-pitch. “Against a good team like that, and that’s a very good team, you can’t give up free bases, and that’s ultimately what beat us,” Doffek said.

Wright State has been the team to beat all season long, earning the top spot in the Horizon League. In the previous series between the two clubs, WSU came out on top, winning two games out of the three played at their home field.

“It was a game we could have and should have won,” Deyoung said. “We had guys in place to score and just had some unlucky rolls of the dice.”

The Panthers have played at least one game every year at Miller Park since 2002, with a record of 17-10 at the stadium, according to the team’s website.