Denison opened their critical four-game series with Wabash College with a doubleheader sweep from Mud Hollow Field in Crawfordsville, Ind. on Saturday afternoon. The Big Red took the opener, 3-2 in extra-innings and cruised to a 15-3 win in game two.
In the opening game of the doubleheader Denison got a brilliant performance from senior starting pitcher Aidan Lucas (Evanston, Ill./Evanston Township) who went all eight innings to earn his first victory of the season.
Wabash would get on the scoreboard first with a run in the bottom of the second inning but DU would respond with two runs in the top of the third via RBI singles by Park Smith (Warren, N.J./The Pingry School) and Peter Krieger (New Canaan, Conn./New Canaan). In the top of the sixth, Wabash's Montana Timmons tied the game with an RBI single that would eventually send the game into extra-innings.
In the top of the eighth the tie was broken after Smith and Tim Duxbury (Winnetka, Ill./New Trier) posted back-to-back singles. With runners on first and second and two out, Evan Nicholson drove in Smith with the go-ahead run. Head coach Mike Clark sent Lucas back out in the eighth to finish what he started and he was forced to work out of a jam.
With one out in the eighth, Wabash's John Pennington doubled and he would move to third on a passed ball in the next at-bat. With the tying run just 90 feet away, Lucas would strike out John Holm and force Chris Deig to fly out to center field to end the game.
DU pounded out 14 hits in the opener while Wabash was held to just eight hits. Lucas fanned seven and walked just two on the afternoon.
In game two, Denison took a 3-0 lead after two innings and exploded for five runs in the third inning thanks to extra-base hits by Smith, Duxbury and Zach Huttie (Cary, N.C./Athens Drive). Duxbury tripled and scored in the second inning. He would come back in the third with a two-run triple to right field and in the fourth inning, the first-year standout would triple for a third time, to the gap in left-center field. His three triples tie a school, single-game record set by Jeff Wade in 1995 vs. Franklin College. The NCAA record for triples in a game is four.
Joining Duxbury atop the hit parade in game two was Lucas who was 3-for-4 with two RBIs and two runs scored. Danny Pritz (Wilmette, Ill./New Trier) also chipped in three hits and three RBIs in the night cap.
The victory went to Tyler Vaske (West Chester, Ohio/Lakota West) who pitched five innings of scoreless baseball. The sophomore allowed only five hits and struck out four to run his record to 4-2.
Denison improves to 17-15 overall and 7-5 in the NCAC West. The loss drops Wabash to 8-4 in the NCAC West. The two teams will close out their weekend series tomorrow beginning at 1 p.m.
