Box Score The Wright State baseball team claimed their third victory in a row on Wednesday evening at Nischwitz Stadium, defeating Hiram College in comeback fashion, 9-6. Kyle Mossbarger delivered the deciding blow, smacking a two-run home run in the eighth inning.
The Raiders fell behind early as Hiram tallied three runs in the first two innings off of WSU starting pitcher Chris Walden. The Terriers used a two-run homer from Frank Liscio and an RBI ground out by Cody Fincham to stake to the 3-0 advantage.
WSU would tally a run in the second inning on a Ross Vagedes RBI single and draw even with the Terriers on a Justin Parker two-RBI single in the third inning.
In the fifth inning, Hiram (3-6) would tack on three more runs on WSU reliever Lee Valencheck. The Terriers used four singles and a sacrifice fly to push their lead to 6-3.
The Raiders would tally a pair of runs in their half of the fifth inning as Jeremy Hamilton and Justin Parker would each record an RBI, pulling WSU within one at 6-5.
In the eighth, the Green and Gold would rally with one out in the inning. It started with a walk by Vagedes and then WSU took their first lead of the game when Mossbarger struck. The freshman was hitless in his first 20 plate appearances and with a 1-1 count he connected for a 345-foot blast to right field and gave WSU a 7-6 lead.
John Kopilchack hit a 415-foot blast to straight-away center field in the next at-bat to extend the Raiders lead and Aaron Field capped the scoring with an RBI single.
Greg Robinson and Scott Ruthven would each throw two shutout innings in relief and allow for WSU to mount its comeback. Ruthven picked up his first win of the season, improving to 1-1, allowing one hit and fanning a pair of hitters.
Head coach Rob Cooper collected his 100th victory in the contest and joins Ron Nischwitz as the only other Raider frontman to win 100 or more games.
Fields collected three hits in the contest and tallied a pair of runs in the contest, while R.J. Gundolff scored twice with a walk and a HBP. Casey McGrew, Hamilton and Vagedes each chipped in a pair of hits in the victory.
Wright State improves to 6-11 overall and will take a three-game winning streak into their second Horizon League series of the season this weekend. WSU will entertain league-leading UIC starting on Friday, March 28 at Nischwitz Stadium. Game time is scheduled for 6:30.
