DAYTON — The top-seeded Wright State baseball program took down No. 6 seed Northern Kentucky 18-4 to advance to the semifinals of the Horizon League Baseball Championship on Thursday at Nischwitz Stadium.
The Raiders (28-25, 20-9 HL) will face the winner of No. 2 seed Oakland and No. 5 seed Youngstown State in the tournament semifinals on Friday, May 27, at 3 p.m.
WSU posted 16 hits as a team, including seven for extra bases.
Alec Sayre paced the offense by going 3-for-4 at the plate with a home run, four RBI, and five runs scored.
Justin Riemer batted 3-for-5 with two doubles and a solo homer, while
Zane Harris went 3-for-4 with three RBI.
Avery Fisher drove in three runs, and
Jay Luikart added two singles.
Andrew Patrick homered for his lone hit in the victory.
Wright State displayed a patient approach offensively with 12 walks. The trio of
Gehrig Anglin,
Julian Greenwell, Sayre, and Fisher led the team with two walks. Defensively, the Raiders were errorless for the 17th time this season.
Starting pitcher
Jake Shirk (6-5) received the winning decision after limiting NKU (19-34, 11-17 HL) to four runs on six hits and one walk while striking out five batters in 7.2 innings.
Henry Von Hollen held the Norse scoreless in the last 1.1 innings of the ballgame.
Sayre got the scoring started for Wright State with a two-run homer in the bottom of the first inning. The Raiders were blanked in the subsequent two innings but exploded for seven runs in the bottom of the fourth inning.
WSU batted around with six hits in the scoring output, highlighted by back-to-back homers from Patrick and Riemer and two-run hits from Sass and Fisher.
While NKU reached the scoreboard on a solo home run in the top of the fifth, Wright State pushed three more runs across in the bottom of the frame to extend its lead to 12-1. Anglin drew a bases-loaded walk while Greenwell scored on a wild pitch. Harris followed with a sacrifice fly to finalize the scoring in the fifth.
The Raiders pushed their edge to 14-1 in the bottom of the seventh with a pair of bases-loaded walks. Two-run singles by Sayre and Harris pushed WSU's run total to 18 in the bottom of the eighth.
Northern Kentucky turned three hits and a walk into three runs in the eighth inning but failed to reach the scoreboard for the remainder of the game. NKU's Kyle Klingenbeck (3-8) was dealt with the loss after allowing nine runs, all earned, in 3.2 innings.
