Box Score Despite taking an early lead on Ryan Konsler's first home run of the season, the Blue Streaks could not overcome some of their own mistakes, nor hold off timely Pioneer hitting in an 8-1 loss in the opening game of the 2012 OAC Tournament.

Box Score

The Blue Streaks outhit Marietta for the third time this season, but couldn't come up with the timely hitting to knock off the nation's highest ranked team. John Carroll and Marietta both left 10 runners on base.

Marietta's senior pitcher Austin Blaski entered the game with a strong resume (9-1 record, 0.58 ERA in 77.2 innings, 85 strikeouts and an opponents' batting average of .183) and is certainly a contender for the NCAA Division III Pitcher of the Year. But Blaski didn't have his best control early in the ball game and the Blue Streaks were patient at the plate.

In the top of the second inning, Ryan Konsler worked the count to 1-2 and saw a fastball to his liking. Sitting “dead red”, Konsler blasted a no-doubt-about-it homer over the wall in left field to give John Carroll the early lead. It was the first dinger allowed all year by Blaski.

“Blaski is a good pitcher, but I think we had a good approach against him today,” said Konsler. “I was sitting fastball on that 1-2 count and I got one inside that I could turn on. I just put a good swing on it and I was excited to see it go over.”

Unfortunately for the Blue Streaks, Marietta answered with two runs in the second inning – the second of which came on arguably the most bizarre play of the season.

With Alex Toth on third, Niko Stanislav on first, and one out, right fielder Jordan Grilliot ripped a 1-1 offering to Bobby Sabatino at second base. Sabatino caught the ball only for a moment and as it dropped the ground, the ruling was that no out had been recorded. Toth held his ground at third base, but Stanislav broke for second. John Carroll shortstop Mark Huddle picked up the ball as it rolled toward him and he fired it to Tom Hickey at fire base to record the out…or so they thought. Hickey pulled his foot off of first base and threw to Huddle at shortstop, who tagged out a diving Stanislav.

Huddle, along with the rest of the Blue Streaks, started jogging off the field thinking they had just recorded an inning ending double play. Huddle rolled the ball back to the pitcher's mound and in the chaos that ensued, Toth bolted for home (scoring the go-ahead run) and Grilliot raced for second.

Spagna limited the damage in the second inning, but a bases loaded walk in the third (his fifth of the game) made it a 3-1 contest.

“As a pitcher, when things happen in the field that you just can't control, you have to do your best to refocus on what you CAN control,” Spagna said. “Even though today didn't go as planned, we're not out of this tournament yet. We're going to come back tomorrow and do our best to just flush today out of our system. Now it's win or go home.”

The Blue Streaks had a chance to answer in the fourth inning with runners on first and second and two away. Mark Huddle hit a rocket toward third that Bryan Gregorich snared on a fully extended dive up toward the line. From there, he dove toward third, touching it a split second before Konsler slid in safely.

The wheels fell off for the Blue Streaks in the fifth inning. With a man on first and two away, the Pioneers smashed five consecutive hits (including a 2-RBI triple) to take control of the game, 8-1.

While JCU wasn't able to get anything going back in their direction on the offensive side, Patrick O'Brien and Patrick Stump tossed 3.1 scoreless and hitless innings.

“I was proud of the way our bullpen threw today,” said coach Thibeault. “We knew that once Jimmy (Spagna) hit 100 pitches, he wouldn't be available tomorrow. Our goal was to not overthrow anybody so that we have 11 of our 12 guys available to throw tomorrow.”

The Blue Streaks face elimination tomorrow afternoon at 2 PM against Mount Union. Heidelberg defeated the Purple Raiders this afternoon in the other opening round game, 6-1.