The quest for an eighth straight MAC Freedom title got off to a roaring start Friday evening at Owls Field in West Lawn, PA as the Misericordia baseball team defeated Wilkes, 16-3, in their opening game.
Five players had multiple hits for the Cougars, led by Tyler Holzapfel and Steve Weisensee with three apiece and three Cougars had multiple RBI with Weisensee knocking in four runs.
Drake Koch had one of his best outings of the season on the mound, going eight innings with seven strikeouts while allowing just four hits and two earned runs.
After Koch got through the first inning 1-2-3 with two strikeouts, the offense gave him the lead in the bottom half with four runs. Two singles by Holzapfel and Santo Guinta after Parker Abate was hit by a pitch loaded the bases for Weisensee, who found a hole through the right side of the infield to give the Cougars an early 2-0 lead. Sean Lyons followed with a single to knock in MU's third run and subsequently stole second allowing Weisensee to steal home to put the Cougars up 4-0 after one inning.
After being held without a hit in the second, Misericordia came back in the third with two more runs on singles by Lyons and Conor Smith.
The Cougars broke the game open in the fourth, scoring seven runs on just five hits, taking advantage of three Wilkes errors. Abate, Holzapfel and Guinta loaded the bases again for Weisensee who hit a sacrifice fly to make it 7-0. Holzapfel and Guinta both scored on a single by Lyons and an error on the right fielder. After Smith walked, Sean Boylan tripled home two runs and Alec Iurato and Kenny Jarema followed with RBI singles to make it 13-0 after four innings.
Wilkes got a run in the fifth to break up the shutout, but Koch settled down and went on to pitch three more innings to make sure the bullpen is well rested for the weekend games.
The Cougars added two more runs in the seventh on and RBI triple by Weisensee and a run-scoring double from Joe Liscio and one in the eighth on a bases-loaded fielder's choice from Scott Carton.
Dan Zurowski finished off the Colonels in the ninth, registering two strikeouts in the inning.
Misericordia will play top-seed DeSales, tomorrow morning at 11:00 after the Bulldogs took down King's, 9-1, earlier Friday afternoon.
