DAYTON – The Wright State baseball team split a Saturday doubleheader with visiting Purdue Fort Wayne at Nischwitz Stadium, dropping the opener 5-4 before seeing the bats explode in the second game for a 17-3 victory.
 
The Raiders (24-23, 17-7 Horizon) close out the regular season home schedule on Sunday afternoon with a doubleheader against Milwaukee. First pitch in game one will be at 12 p.m., while both games Sunday can be seen on ESPN+. Prior to Sunday's games, the Raiders will celebrate the careers of five seniors - Bradley Deboutte, Aaron Ernst, Zane Harris, Donnie Nicodemus and Henry Von Hollen – with pregame festivities set to begin around 11:40 a.m. on the field.
 
Following Sunday's doubleheader, Wright State closes the regular season with three games at Milwaukee next week before the Raiders play host to the 2022 Horizon League Championship May 25-28 at Nischwitz Stadium.
 
Game 1 – Purdue Fort Wayne 5, Wright State 4 (7 innings)
Purdue Fort Wayne jumped ahead early with a first inning leadoff home run from Jarrett Bickel before the Raiders knotted things up in the fourth thanks to an Alec Sayre single to begin the frame and a Zane Harris sacrifice fly later in the inning.
 
The visitors responded in the top of the fifth as three of the first four batters reached in the inning to set up Ben Higgins' grand slam. Wright State would not go down quietly, as Justin Riemer and Justin McConnell sent back-to-back solo homers over the left field wall in the bottom of the fifth, but the Raiders wouldn't get closer as the inning came to an end when Sayre grounded into a double play. The Raiders had a final chance in the seventh when Riemer led off with a single, but he was quickly erased as part of McConnell's double play ground out. Down to his final strike, Andrew Patrick connected on a solo homer of his own to pull Wright State within one, but Julian Greenwell's line drive to center field moments later ended the opener.
 
Riemer and Patrick each had two hits in the first game as the Raiders collected just seven total base knocks against Purdue Fort Wayne's JD Deany (5-2), who earned the win after six-plus innings in which he allowed a pair of walks and six hits. Brian Skelton notched his first save of the year for the Mastodons after rolling the seventh inning double play as he closed out the win. Raider starter Jake Shirk (5-5) allowed four Purdue Fort Wayne hits and added a walk and a pair of hit batters to go along with four strikeouts as he allowed the five runs. Chris Gallagher and Bradley Deboutte combined to surrender just one hit over the final two innings as each recorded a strikeout out of the Raider bullpen.
 
Game 2 – Wright State 17, Purdue Fort Wayne 3
The Raiders came out on fire offensively, plating four runs in the first inning of game two to never look back, as they tallied runs in six of their eight offensive frames. Wright State collected 19 total hits and eight extra-base knocks in the win, including homers from Greenwell, Sayre and Gehrig Anglin.
 
A Harris RBI single got the scoring going in the opening inning, but it was a Reimer two out, three-run triple into the right field corner that put the offense squarely in motion. The Raiders added three more runs in the second frame thanks to Greenwell's two-run shot to right field and Harris' second RBI of the contest, this one via a sacrifice fly. Wright State plated single runs in the fifth and sixth thanks to Sammy Sass' RBI single back up the middle and Sayre's solo homer. After Purdue Fort Wayne tallied a pair of runs in the top of the seventh, the Raider bats continued to produce, using a Jay Luikart RBI groundout and a Mastodon balk to tack on two more runs of their own in the bottom of the seventh.
 
The floodgates opened in the eighth, as Wright State plated six runs thanks to Greenwell's two-run triple to right center field, Sayre's second homer of the night – this time a two-run shot to the opposite field down the right field line and Anglin's blast down the left field line moments later to plate the final two runs of the contest.
 
Six different Raiders had multiple hits in the second game, including a pair of four hit efforts from Sayre and Riemer, while Harris notched three hits of his own. Wright State starter Sebastian Gongora (4-1) struck out eight over six innings of work, allowing four hits and a walk, before Tristan Haught and Donnie Nicodemus wrapped up the final three innings.