The Dominican University baseball team closed out the best spring trip in program history on Saturday with a 3-0 shutout victory over the Muskingum Fighting Muskies to improve to 7-1 on the trip and 8-3 overall. Freshman left-hander
George Sherman went the distance, improving to 2-1 on the season and lowering his earned run average to 1.59 with his second complete-game on the week.
"I'm very happy with how we competed today in our final game of the trip," said Steve Hardman, the Stars' head coach. "It is always nice to win on getaway day and we finished the week 7-1. Right now we are playing with a lot of confidence and I am excited to see how the rest of the year will play out. If we continue playing the way we are now, there are great things in store for us."
The Stars staked Sherman to a 1-0 lead before he even took to the mound when
Colin Janison plated
Joe Kukla with an RBI single up the middle in the top of the first. The hit was the first of three on the day for the senior who finished 3-for-4 at the plate with an RBI.
Two innings later, Janison drove in
Matt Segovia who led off the top of the third with a double down the left field line. Dominican later loaded the bases in the inning with
Nathaniel Natividad bringing home Janison with a sacrifice fly, giving Sherman all the offense he would need.
Sherman was able to pitch around a pair of Dominican fielding miscues in the fifth and then was able to negate a walk and a single in the sixth with the help of an inning-ending 5-3 double play.
Dominican managed nine hits off of the Fighting Muskies. Kukla finished the day 2-for-5 while Segovia,
Mike Piotrowski,
Alec Coggins and
Mike Buckley collected one hit apiece.
The Stars will return to the Chicagoland area, playing in the Wheaton Baseball Round Robin in two weeks. The Stars will face Concordia University-Moorhead at 11:00 a.m. on Friday, March 23, followed by a game against Beloit College at 2:00 p.m. On Saturday, March 23, Dominican will take on the host Wheaton College Thunder at 5:00 p.m.
