It was not how it was planned, and the sudden switch could have thrown them off.

But the Blue Streaks made the best of a less-than-ideal situation, and produced a sweep of Wilmington Wednesday afternoon.

The games had been originally been scheduled for Saturday, March 30, and had been postponed three times before Tuesday's decision was made to pick up the doubleheader and move it south. John Carroll would still be the "home" team on the scoreboard but it would obviously not be played in the friendly confines of Schweickert Field.

Still, JCU plated 27 runs on the day to push their record to 15-5 on the year and just as importantly, 4-0 in the OAC.


Game One

The Blue Streaks pulled away from the Lombardo Student Center at 6:45 this morning in University Heights, Ohio to make the long voyage down to Wilmington. It would be the team's first game in nearly a week.

Wilmington would draw first blood off freshman starting pitcher Mitch Midea, who would give up the lead after the first half inning of play, as Luke Kleindl would score. Good thing for Midea, the Blue Streaks would respond in kind.

Senior Patrick Keohane and sophomore Sam Heaton would get their impressive days going by each singling to start the inning, and Keohane would later score off an Aaron Zawadzki sac fly to left field. Junior Joe Charpentier would later ground out softly to the pitcher on the first base side, and score Heaton from third.

The Blue Streaks increased their lead in the second inning when Heaton singled, scoring senior Derek Penman. The next batter, senior Dominic Mittiga provided a single, scoring Keohane and Heaton to bring the lead to 5-1. The Quakers responded once again in the next half inning, the score after two and a half innings 5-2.

In the bottom of the third, Keohane continued his fine day with his third hit, a two RBI double that scored sophomore Christian Cassaro and junior David Ferguson, and then Zawadzki and Ferguson provided RBI singles of their own in the bottom of the fourth. In the fifth Mittiga recorded his third and fourth RBI's with another single to bring the score to 11-2 after five played.

The Quakers scored another run in the sixth inning to try and cut into the deficit, but another three-run barrage by the Blue Streaks in the bottom of the sixth brought the score to 14-3, and the Quaker's attempt at a comeback to a close.

Midea's day ended with 5.1 innings pitched, and he struck out eight, giving up only one earned run. Cameron Mayle and Carter Semancik came into provide relief for Midea, and keep the Quakers at bay, albeit giving up two runs in the bottom of the ninth.

The Blue and Gold took game one of the OAC double header by a score of 14-5, and raised their overall record to 14-5 and their conference record to 3-0.


Game Two

After their 14 run showing in game one, the Blue Streaks wasted no time to crack the scoreboard in game two. Keohane led off the game with a home run down the left field line, giving JCU the early 1-0 advantage.

Keohane would continue his marvelous day at the plate in the second inning with a two RBI single, extending the Blue Streaks lead to 4-0. At this point in the day, Keohane was 7-7 with four singles, two doubles and a home run in seven official at bats.

Wilmington worsened their wounds in the second inning with a wild pitch and an error by the center fielder, allowing the Blue Streaks to build a 6-0 lead. As a result the Fightin' Quakers swapped pitchers, calling Jared Ferenchak to the mound.

Despite the pitching change, the Wilmington fielding woes continued to put themselves well on display. Mittiga scored off an error on a Ferguson hit, capping off a 7-run inning featuring the entire lineup stepping up to the plate at least once.

Unfortunately for the Blue and Gold, a shutout victory would not remain in their crosshairs. The Fightin' Quakers notched their first run of game two in the top of the third inning. The Blue Streaks struck back with three runs over the next two innings. Senior John Bondi contributed two of those runs with a double to right center field.

The Blue Streaks had a 10-1 lead heading into the bottom of the sixth inning but Wilmington would attempt to string together a comeback. Their efforts only strung together one run, as JCU would pose a 10-2 advantage in the final innings of the game.

Wilmington made things interesting in the eighth after the Blue Streaks pulled Cam Mayle who relieved Andrew Steele.  After that Wilmington went on an outburst, scoring seven runs to tighten up the score to 12-9 in favor of the Blue Streaks.  Duncan Cappar came into the inning to end the rally and he did by striking out the only batter he faced to help minimize the damage.

The Blue Streaks got a run in the bottom of the eighth to give Cappar a 13-9 cushion that he would later not need.  The fielders didn't get a lot of action in the ninth innings as Cappar struck out the side to record the 4-out, 4 strikeout save.  This was Cappar's third save of the year.

In this big offensive output for the Blue Streaks, some milestones were accomplished.  Senior Pat Keohane now stands alone in third place for career hits in program history with 185, trailing only Tom Hickey (205) and Bobby Sabatino (200).  Also Keohane blasted his way onto third place on the all-time home run list with his homer back in the first.

"Everyone knows the tone of our lineup goes through Pat in the leadoff spot," said coach Ryan Nordquist. "We're incredibly lucky to have a guy like him on our side."

Nordquist also commented on Andrew Steele.

"We really like our chances when #19 is on the bump," said Nordquist.

Steele becomes the first pitcher since Aaron Lapaglia in 2016 to win at least 5 games in a season. Steele moves to 5-0 on the year.

"The guys have worked hard to be in this position, we're 15-5 and nowhere near our best baseball," continued Nordquist, "It's a good spot to be in as we continue to improve through the second half of the season."

The Blue Streaks will play out of conference tomorrow against Oberlin and then return back to conference play this Saturday when they travel to Muskingum.