CHICAGO – Northern Kentucky baseball bowed out of the 2017 Horizon League Championship on the first round of double elimination, dropping a 12-2 decision to No. 2-seed Wright State before falling to No. 5 Oakland, 12-5. NKU ends the season at 25-33, marking the best year for the Norse since transitioning to Division I with a third-place Horizon League regular-season finish.
GAME ONE | No. 2 Wright State 12, No. 3 NKU 2
At the Plate
- Wright State held a 13-9 hitting advantage over the Norse.
- Kyle Colletta and Dominic Mercurio were the only Norse with a multi-hit outing, both going 2-for-4 from the dish.
- Chad Roberts drove in one run, going 1-for-3, and TJ Alas went 1-for-3 with one run scored.
On the Mound
- Ganns got his 14th start of the season, pitching three innings. The southpaw allowed four runs on as many hits and struck out one batter while walking three. He falls to 3-8 with the loss.
- Travis Rowland took over in the fourth, surrendering two runs on three hits with one strikeout and one batter walked in two innings of work.
- Seth Rosenberg tossed the final three innings, with six runs allowed on five hits with three batters struck out and one walked.
Key Moments
- Wright State struck first in the second inning, plating two runs. The Norse chipped away at the lead in the top of the third with Moffatt crossing the plate on a groundout to cut the deficit to 2-1 in favor of the Raiders, but WSU added two more runs to the tally to go up by three.
- The Raiders pulled ahead even further through the next two frames, with two runs apiece in the third and fourth.
- NKU added its second run of the game with an RBI single that scored Alas.
- A grand slam in the bottom of the seventh and a pair of RBI groundouts in the eighth propelled Wright State to a 12-2 advantage before the Norse went down in order in the ninth.
GAME TWO | No. 5 Oakland 12, No. 3 NKU 5
At the Plate
- Oakland out-hit NKU by a 14-11 margin.
- .TJ Alas and Will Haueter had 3-for-5 outings, with Alas clubbing a pair of doubles to record his 20th of the season. Alas scored three of NKU's five runs and drove in one.
- Trey Ganns went 2-for-4 from the dish with a pair of RBI, and Brad Bohlen batted in one run.
On the Mound
- Brody Basilone made his 10th start of the season and pitched 4.0 innings, surrendering three runs on five hits. Basilone struck out three Golden Grizzlies and walked a pair.
- Charlie Jerger relieved Basilone in the fifth and put in an inning of work, with two runs scored on four hits.
- Cameron Ross pitched 2.2 innings with three strikeouts and one batter walked. He gave up five runs on four hits.
- Joe Martin took over for the final 1.1 innings, recording two strikeouts and walking none, while the Golden Grizzlies scored one run on one hit.
Key Moments
- The Golden Grizzlies used a triple in the first and a double in the second to get in scoring position and plate the first two runs of the contest, and continued to score at a steady rate, with one run in the fourth and two in the fifth for a 5-0 advantage.
- Bohlen drove in Mercurio with a single to left field in the fifth, but Oakland answered back with three runs in the next frame.
- The Norse found some offensive rhythm in the sixth, with Alas stretching a single into a double before back-to-back singles sent him across the plate.
- Oakland crossed into double-digit runs with a pair of two-out, two-run home runs in the eighth before Alas took advantage of a wild pitch to score his second run of the game.
- Martin retired the Golden Grizzlies in order in the ninth and the Norse plated two, but NKU ultimately fell in the elimination game.
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Norse Notes
- NKU's 25 wins are the most in a season since transitioning to Division I.
- Alas extended his hitting streak to 19 games and reached base in each of the final 49 contests.
- During the Wright State game, Alas broke the single-season record for at-bats. He ends the season with 242 at-bats, surpassing Shaun Erie's 2002 season record of 236.
- With his junior year complete, Ganns has already recorded the fifth-most doubles in an NKU career, with 47. He is sixth on the all-time single season RBI list, with 57. Ganns also sits at No. 7 on the all-time career base on balls list, with 86, and drew 39 walks this season, which is good for No. 5 on the all-time single season list.
- Ross made 36 appearances during the season, tying Kevin Jordan (2010) for the second-most appearances in a single season.
- Jake Richmond scored 53 runs during the course of the season, which sits at No. 10 on the all-time single season list.
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