The Wright State baseball team fell behind early in the game, but rallied to post a 5-4 league victory over Butler. The Raiders used six innings of solid relief pitching from Nate Stevens and Scott Ruthven nailed down his second save of the season.

Butler jumped out to an early 3-0 lead on WSU starter John Lambert, using four hits and benefiting from three walks and a wild pitch. Lambert was relieved in the second inning by Stevens and the Bulldogs fortunes at the plate changed.

The Raiders chipped away at the Butler lead with a run in the second inning on an RBI single from John Kopilchack, making it a 3-1 game.

Joel Matheny would provide the only Butler offense against Stevens, a solo home run that pushed the score to 4-1.

WSU added a pair of runs in the fourth inning, when Brian Shoup led the inning off with a triple to get things started. Shoup scored on an Aaron Field single to make it a 4-2 ball game. Fields then stole second, moving to third on a throwing error by the BU catcher, and scored on a Gerald Ogrinc single to center field.

Trailing 4-3 in the sixth inning, the Green and Gold pushed the tying run across the plate. An error by the Butler third baseman allowed the leadoff batter Dan Biedenharn to reach base. Jeremy Hamilton then moved Biedenharn to third with his 16th double of the season and Justin Parker would double to push the tying run across the plate.

The Green and Gold then took the lead when BU reliever Bryan Bokowy allowed a single and walked a pair of batters with two outs. Shoup then chopped an infield single to the shortstop and the eventual winning run came in to score.

Stevens, now 1-0 on the season, would throw six innings, allowing only one run, and strike out six batters in the relief effort. He was relieved by Jason Bennion to start the seventh inning, as Bennion and Garret Holleran would combine to throw a scoreless frame.

In the ninth, junior Scott Ruthven came on to close things out for his second save of the season. Ruthven would have to work with the bases loaded after a one-out single and two walks, but struck out the final Butler (12-22, 5-12 HL) batter to secure the win for WSU. Parker extended his hitting streak to 21 games with a third inning single as he posted a two-for-four day at the plate. Shoup paced all players with three hits and scored a pair of runs, while Biedenharn scored twice in the contest.

The Raiders are now 18-13 overall this season and improve to 11-6 in the Horizon League with the victory. WSU will now hit the road for a four game series with Youngstown State starting Friday afternoon at 3:00.