The Shepherd Rams baseball team continued their historic season as they have now reached 30 wins on the entire campaign. This Shepherd team now owns the school record for longest winning streak in a season at 16. The long win streak was snapped on Sunday in a 9–4 loss to Notre Dame College of Ohio.
The Rams played eight games last week where they went on to win six of them. They saw a variety of players step up for the team. Southpaw pitcher Paul Hvozdovic notched career win number 30 in an 8–0 win over West Liberty. Hvozdovic threw seven innings of shutout ball, allowing only four hits and recording 11 strikeouts. He now has a 1.60 earned run average on the season and improved his record to 8–0 on the year.
Ryan Pansch also pitched a complete game shutout against West Liberty, giving up three hits and striking out nine. The Rams would go on to win that game by a final tally of 7–0. Earlier in the week against WV Wesleyan, Pansch tossed four innings of shutout ball, only giving up two hits and recording eight strikeouts. Pansch now has five wins on the season and has lowered his ERA to 1.76.
In each of the eight games last week, two Rams players would record at least one hit in each game. Spencer Wolfe just could not be stopped. To put it lightly, he was on a tear. In the Sunday doubleheader against Notre Dame, Wolfe recorded three home runs and seven runs batted in. His stats on the season are jaw-dropping with a .449 average, six home runs, 44 RBI and 20 stolen bases. Wolfe is putting himself in a position to win the Triple Crown in the Mountain East Conference. He was also named the Atlantic Region hitter of the week.
Ryan Messina was the other Ram recording a hit in each game last week. He recorded 11 hits in 23 at bats, smacking one home run, recording 10 RBI, and seven runs scored. Messina is second on the team in home runs, with four as well as RBI with 43.
Other notable hitting performances came from Michael Lott who recorded five multi-hit games over the week for the Rams. Lott is second on the team in batting average with a .436 clip on the season and leads the team in hits with a total of 58. Kyle Porter and Jacob Carney each recorded three multi-hit games. Porter is also capable of swiping bags, leading the team with 25 stolen bases. Carney, who is only a freshman, is batting .396 on the season.
The Rams hold a three-game lead over second-place Concord in the Mountain East Conference. They travel to Urbana for a four-game series where they will attempt to clinch first place in the conference before going to Fairmont State to finish out the regular season.
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