XENIA, Ohio – The Saginaw Valley State University baseball program took on Cedarville Saturday afternoon in the second doubleheader of the weekend. The Cardinals (7-3) took home both games against the Yellow Jackets (4-8) with scores of 4-1 and 6-1 to sweep the four-game series.
Lucas Mead had another big day with two hits in both games and finishing 4-for-8 including a double and a triple with two runs and two RBI. He has a hit in all nine games he has played in including six multi-hit games and five straight. Ethan Scheib finished 2-for-2 in game one. Austin Cicerone and Brendan Conkle both had three hits in game two with Mitchell Walters following with a pair of singles.
Jack Decker (W, 3-0) was stellar in game one pitching a seven-inning complete game. He struck out eight, allowing one unearned run on five hits. JJ Arbini (W, 2-0) pitched six scoreless innings allowing four hits and two walks while punching out eight. Arbini leads the GLIAC in ERA with 0.00 after allowing one unearned run in his first 12 innings of work this season.
Game One: SVSU 4, CU 1
A fielder's choice in the first inning got the scoring started for Cedarville taking the 1-0 lead. Saginaw Valley responded with their own run-scoring ground out. Mead tripled to lead off and Aaron Bess drove him in with a groundout to second, tying the game. SVSU loaded the bases on two errors and a walk in the third. Mead walked to push home Buck Snabes and Bess reached on a fielder's choice to score Ryan Jarvis, making it 3-1. An RBI single in the fourth from Snabes scored Scheib and extended the lead to three.
That was more than enough for Decker in the start as he allowed only two base runners in the final five innings. Tate Marland (L, 0-1) started for Cedarville, allowing all four runs, two earned in his five innings of work.
Game Two: SVSU 6, CU 1
Arbini got all the run support needed as the Cardinal starter matched Decker with eight strikeouts in the outing. SVSU took the lead in the second with three straight singles to start the inning to load the bases. Chase Miller walked to score Chase Raymond and Scheib followed with a fielder's choice that scored Conkle to make it 2-0. Casey Joppie bounced home Conkle in the fourth for his second run scored of the game.
Jensen Wagoner (L, 0-2) pitched 5.2 innings allowing three runs on eight hits and two walks in the loss. Tobias Rupp relieved Wagoner in the sixth and faced three batters in the seventh without recording an out. He allowed three runs on two hits and a walk while recording only one out.
In the seventh, a walk and single put two on for Mead. He doubled home Jarvis putting himself and Cicerone in scoring position. Raymond put down a sacrifice fly and, on the play, both Cicerone and Mead scored to make it 6-0.
Arbini gave way to Ryan Adams in the seventh who struck out three over two innings and allowing two hits and a walk. Adams worked out of trouble in the eighth after punching out the final two batters and stranded the bases loaded. Will Juday took over in the ninth allowing one run on two hits and a walk while striking out one. A leadoff double was pushed around with a ground out and a sacrifice fly to break the shutout.
Up Next: Saginaw Valley baseball starts their spring break trip on Wednesday, March 2. The Cardinals head to North Carolina to face Barton at 2:00 PM before playing three games in three days against Walsh in Tarboro, N.C.