ESU Baseball wins over Washburn 8-3

Jordan Haiduk / The Bulletin

Swing! The Hornets brought home a spectacular 8-3 win over Washburn this week.

The #17 Emporia State baseball team had another good weekend of action by adding four wins and one loss. The games put ESU at 11-3 for the season.

On Thursday, Washburn came into town for an early season non-conference game. ESU scored its first four runs with only one hit. The Hornets continued to score and came out on top with an 8-3 victory. ESU had six hits for the day in addition to nine bases on balls.

Senior pitcher Brock Nehls started the game for the Hornets and pitched seven innings for ESU. Nehls had 12 strikeouts in the game and struck out the side twice in the game. Senior pitcher Ty Reese came in for two innings of relief work and had one strikeout while allowing only two hits.

Senior infielder Nick Carlson got on base in every at-bat in the day and also scored two runs for ESU. Nick Wolfe went two for four with three RBI.

During the first game, ESU gave up 10 runs in the fifth inning alone and the Hornet offense did not produce as many runs as usual. The ESU offense only notched five hits on the day as Carlson and Junior infielder Anthony Dreiling was the only one on the team with two RBI for the day.

In the second game of the day, junior Diego Soto pitched 3.2 innings of work and picked up the win in the seven inning game. Soto struck out six. Junior Brett McBride came in for relief work in the seventh inning and struck out two during his first inning of pitching this season. Senior outfielder Eric Shortell had two hits and five RBI in the game. Senior Nick Wolfe had a three-run homerun in the sixth inning.

Sunday featured two games for the Hornets as the team took on Minnesota-Duluth followed by a game with Fort Hays State University.

In the game against Minnesota-Duluth ESU got eight runs in the second inning. Dreiling started the inning for ESU with a homerun. Dreiling then came up a second time in the inning and hit a grand slam which gave the Hornets an 8-0 lead. Dreiling finished going three-for-four with five RBI.

Shortell hit a homerun for ESU and had four RBI for the day. Senior infielder Matt Marasco came back into the ESU lineup after being injured earlier in the year. Marasco went hitless in his return.

Junior Tyler Applehans started the game for ESU in game two against FHSU. Applehans pitched eight innings and gave up two hits and no runs on his way to striking out eight. Reese came in for relief work for ESU and gave the Hornets' pitching staff its first shutout of the year as ESU won 5-0.

Freshman Kevin Wempe went one-for-three with two RBI in the game to lead the Hornets. Junior outfielder Caleb Williamson scored two runs for ESU in the game.