BLOOMINGTON, Ill.- UW-Oshkosh baseball opened its three-game series at Illinois Wesleyan with an 11-8 victory at IWU's Horenberger Field on Friday (March 20).
 
UW-Oshkosh (4-4), receiving votes in the most recent American Baseball Coaches Association poll, collected 16 hits on Friday afternoon, including three doubles and a home run while, the team stole two bases. Brenden Max (Libertyville, Ill./Libertyville) and Trevor Morris (Naperville, Ill./Neuqua Valley) both had three hits in five trips to the plate while Danny Connelly (Mundelein, Ill./Mundelein), Logan Schill (Pewaukee/Pewaukee), Aaron Davis (Darien, Ill./Downers Grove South) and Jack McNamara (La Grange, Ill./Lyons) all had two. Jack McKellips (Oshkosh/Lourdes Academy) and Braydon Skenandore (De Pere/West De Pere) rounded out the Titans' hits with one apiece.
 
Connelly opened the scoring with a two-out double to left center in the top of the first inning that scored both Max and Skenandore before reaching home himself on Schill's single to center field.
 
Illinois Wesleyan responded with three runs of its own in the bottom half of the inning, scoring twice on a triple and once more on a single against the Titans' starting pitcher, Josh Jansen (DeForest/DeForest). Jansen pitched 4.1 innings on Friday and struck out three batters while allowing five runs on seven hits, four walks and a hit batter.
 
Illinois Wesleyan took its first lead in the second inning with an RBI single in the second inning before Oshkosh reclaimed the edge in the top of the third frame. Owen Housinger (Hawthorn Woods, Ill./Stevenson) drew a leadoff walk and moved around the bases on back-to-back singles, eventually scoring on a double play to tie the game at 4-4. McNamara sent Max home two batters later with a single to right field.
 
Jansen allowed Illinois Wesleyan to tie the game again in the fifth inning on a bases loaded hit batter before being relieved by Joe Richardson (Lake Forest, Ill./Stevenson), who induced a pop out and got a strikeout to escape the one-out, bases loaded situation.
 
Morris broke the 5-all tie in the top of the sixth inning by hitting his first career home run over the right field fence on the second pitch of the frame.
 
Hoyt Keller (Wautoma/Wautoma) replaced Richardson at the start of the seventh inning and allowed Illinois Wesleyan to grab its last lead, scoring on a solo home run and a fielder's choice before getting out of the inning.
 
Both teams stranded runners in scoring position in the eighth inning. Colton Kachinsky (New Lenox, Ill./Lincoln-Way West) (1-0) threw most of the eighth inning for the Titans after Keller allowed a leadoff walk, striking out the first batter he saw and inducing a pair of flyouts to the corners.
 
Max led off the top of the ninth frame with a single and was pinch ran for by Ben Volpe (Whitefish Bay/Whitefish Bay). Schill advanced Volpe to second with a walk before Davis sent the pinch runner across the plate to tie the game again with a double to right center. Oshkosh added four insurance runs in the inning on McNamara's RBI groundout and bases loaded hit by pitches for Skenandore, Housinger and Volpe.
 
Ben Buehring (Oshkosh/Oshkosh West) relived Kachinsky for the ninth inning and gave up a two-out run before sealing the victory.
 
The Titans, who moved to 12-1 all time against the green and white Titans, will have a chance to add two more wins with a pair of games against Illinois Wesleyan left on the schedule in the next two days, facing off at noon on Saturday (March 21) and 11 a.m. on Sunday (March 22).