BLUFFTON, Ohio - The Bluffton University baseball team had its best day of 2021 with a sweep of rival Defiance College at Memorial Field on a beautiful Saturday, April 3, 2021. The Beavers took care of business with a mercy-rule 13-3 victory in game one and they finished the sweep with another seven-inning job, this time a 16-5 victory.
Bluffton puts runs on the scoreboard in five of seven innings en route to the 13-3 victory in game one. Parker Reynolds (Avon) and Adam Duncan (Northwood/Lake) did the damage with RBI doubles in the bottom of the first as Bluffton went up 4-0 over the Jackets.
Sophomore Jack Towell (Batavia/West Clermont) doubled home Reid Ruhl (Hamilton) in the second and when Luke Hanson (Somerset/Sheridan) drew a bases-loaded walk, Towell crossed the dish for a 6-0 spread after two innings.
Ruhl lifted a sacrifice fly to center following a Jaxon Rogan leadoff triple in the third and he tripled home Duncan and Nick Diana (Batavia/West Clermont) in the fourth for a 9-0 advantage.
Defiance stuck around with a run in the sixth and two more in the seventh, but four tallies by the home team in the bottom of the frame ended it in mercy-rule fashion with Bluffton taking game one by a 13-3 count. A two-run double by Jake Baumgartner (Toledo/Start) followed by a two-run Duncan base knock was all she wrote in the lidlifter.
Sophomore Jacob Boelkens (Millbury/Lake) made the most of his second straight quality start. He allowed just three runs, two earned, on six hits in six innings of work. Boelkens fanned seven and walked four. Jaden Jaques (New Palestine, IN/New Palestine) worked a scoreless seventh to close it out.
Ruhl, Baumgartner and Duncan all drove in three runs and Hanson added a pair of RBI. Latkofsky, Towell, Reynolds, Baumgartner and Duncan all crossed the dish twice in the 13-3 rout.
Game two was over almost before it started. Ten Bluffton runs in the home half of the first was more than enough to knock out the Jackets. Eight of those tallies were unearned as DC added to its misery with two first-inning errors. A Towell three-run bomb was the highlight!
Reynolds got in on the long-ball action with a three-run homer in the fourth as Bluffton opened a 15-2 lead going to the fifth inning. Defiance tried to make a game of it with three scores in the top of the fifth, but a Towell RBI single in the bottom of the frame pushed the lead to 11 for relievers Josh Slade (Cincinnati/Madeira) and Seth Evans (Ada/OSU-Lima) who got it home in seven when they needed just eight batters to finish off the 16-5 victory.
Tommy Siemer (Liberty Township/Lakota East) improved to 3-1 on the season, allowing five runs on eight hits with five strikeouts in five innings of work. Towell drove in five runs, while Latkofsky added four in game two. Ruhl and Rogan scored three times apiece, while Latkofsky, Towell, Baumgartner all crossed the dish two times. Adam Yoh (Milford) chipped in with a pair of safeties.
After a weekend of painting and searching for Easter eggs, the Beavers will go back to work with a Heartland Conference series at Transylvania on the docket next Saturday, April 10, following the completion of their March 6 game when they get to Lexington, Ky!
-BEAVERS-