Wheels: Northwestern baseball overpowers General McLane

In Wednesday night’s opener of the Wheels Invitational baseball tournament against Clover, Northwestern coach Mitch Walters started all seniors.

Thursday night in the Trojans’ second game against General McLane (Pa.), Walters started all underclassmen.

The results stayed the same as Northwestern got its second victory of the tournament, 9-1, over the Lancers.

Preston Belk pitched a complete game two-hitter for his first win and the Trojans scored eight unearned runs on the night. Will Hagood was 2-for-3 with two RBIs for Northwestern.

Northwestern second baseman Cameron Smith made a nice diving stop and throw to first to end the Lancers’ second inning. Shortstop Chris Marshgil also made several nice plays going to his right and making strong throws to first.

A one-out walk came back to haunt Belk in the third inning as the Lancers got on the board first. Ryan Carpenter walked and Ryan Sibbald bunted him to second. Jon Solberg followed with the first base hit for either team, a sharp single to centerfield, that scored Carpenter to put the Lancers up 1-0.

The lead didn’t last long as the Trojans batted around in the bottom of the inning, with the help of three errors. All seven runs in the inning were unearned.

Northwestern did get four consecutive base hits in the inning, including two perfectly executed hit-and-runs.

It started bad for General McLane with a throwing error by the shortstop on Luke Gibson’s grounder. Austin Seay, who was 2-for-3, hit a groundball through the vacated second baseman’s spot on the first hit-and-run to put runners at the corners. An out later, a fielding error scored Gibson to tie it at 1-1.

Smith followed with another shot through the 3-4 hole to plate Seay and put the Trojans up. B.A. Ashley’s single to left brought in Kirk Clayton, who reached on the second error. Ashley was also 2-for-3.

A bunt pushed past the pitcher towards the second baseman resulted in a base hit for Ian Estes as Smith scored and a throwing error into left field by the first baseman plated Ashley. Hagood’s single to left-center drove home Estes and a wild pitch later scored Hagood with two outs to make it 7-1.

Another error and another run-scoring base knock by Hagood made it 9-1 Trojans in the fifth for the final margin.

Northwestern will take on Faith Baptist (Ga.) on Friday at 4 p.m.

This story was originally published April 2, 2015 at 9:39 PM with the headline "Wheels: Northwestern baseball overpowers General McLane."