Individually, two Bobcats continued their historic start. As a team, nothing went right for the Bobcats.
Ohio (13-15, 3-3 Mid-American Conference) mustered only four hits in an 11-2 lopsided loss against Cincinnati (11-16).
The Bobcats could not get anything going offensively against a greenhorn pitcher in Cincinnati’s Ryan Atkinson.
Despite making only his fourth collegiate appearance, Atkinson struck out 11 batters in his seven innings of work.
“He was mixing it up real well,” Ohio right fielder Jensen Painter said. “He was coming right at people and mixing his pitches real well and spotting up real well with every single pitch.”
Painter kept his on-base streak alive and extended it to 28 by earning a walk off Bearcats reliever Sam Vandenheuvel in the ninth inning.
Ohio coach Joe Carbone praised Atkinson for the job he did on the Bobcat hitters.
“He made a bunch of our hitters look bad,” Carbone said. “I told (Cincinnati coach Brian) Cleary that he is a weekend starter for them. They haven’t given him much chance on the mound, but Cleary said that is the best he has thrown all year.”
The Bearcats scored nine runs in the first four innings and put plenty of pressure on the Bobcats with their ability to get on base. Once on base, they put more strain on the opposing pitchers with speed.
“Their top three guys like to steal and we went over that with our guys,” Carbone said. “Our guys got in there and fell asleep on that.”
Freshman Jake Madsen extended his hitting streak to 21 games and moved as far as third base in the second inning but was left stranded.
The Bobcat offense was stymied by the Bearcats for most of the evening — for the majority of the game Ohio had committed more errors (four) than the team had hits.
In the bottom of the ninth, Ohio loaded the bases and Madsen knocked in a run while an RBI single from Dan Schmidt plated another.
Carbone said the lack of offense, as well as the multitude of defensive errors, contributed to the poor showing.
“We took the wrong approach up at the plate,” Carbone said. “We didn’t play good defense and got in a jam early by kicking a couple ground balls in the first and second inning.”
Ohio now squares off against regional rival Marshall Wednesday, but Carbone said the focus is not the rivalry.
“We just have to work on ourselves,” Carbone said. “ We need to get better at the things that we’re doing. We have to get better at hitting and we need to get better defensively.”
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