Box Score One week ago the Wabash baseball team turned key hits with runners on base into runs to win two games from The College of Wooster to capture the North Coast Athletic Conference Tournament Championship and earn a berth in the NCAA Championship Tournament. Those hits eluded the Little Giants Thursday in the Mideast Regional meeting between the two teams in Adrian, Michigan as Wooster claimed a 4-2 victory over the Little Giants.
 
Wabash (28-16) matched the top-seeded Scots (37-8) overall with each team collecting ten hits in the game. Wooster put four runs on the scoreboard in the first four innings and held on down the stretch for the victory to advance in the tournament bracket to face Shenandoah on Friday.
 
The Little Giants scored their first run of the game in the top of the second inning when Matthew Annee lifted a two-out single to right field. Eric Chavez followed with a single to center before Tyler Downing doubled down the left field line to bring home Annee and cut the Wooster lead in half. The Scots took advantage of a hit batsman and an error in the first inning, scoring two runs on a single from Dan Harwood for the 2-0 lead. Wooster added a third run in the bottom half of the second inning on a single by Michael Wielansky to plate Harry Witwer-Dukes. A single by Nick Strausbaugh in the third inning added another run to push the lead to 4-1.
 
Bryan Roberts, Sean Smith, and Ryan Thomas combined to hold Wooster to three hits over the final five innings of the game. Roberts took the loss as the starter, but worked 6-2/3 innings, scattering ten hits for three earned runs. He struck out seven batters and walked two along with four hit batsmen. Smith closed out the seventh inning, retiring the only batter he faced. Thomas closed out the eighth inning in relief of Smith, allowing one walk while striking out one batter.
 
Wabash cut the lead in half in the sixth inning. Jackson Blevins drilled a two-out single up the middle, then stole second. He raced home on an RBI single by Annee to make the score 4-2.
 
The Little Giants put runners on first and second with two outs in the eighth inning and picked up a two-out double in the ninth, but were unable to pick up a key hit to draw closer the Scots.
 
Annee, Blevins, and Sean Roginski each finished with two hits for Wabash. Chavez, Downing, Bryce Aldridge, and Henry Wannemuehler each added one hit to the Little Giants' totals.
 
Wabash falls to the losers' bracket and will play Marietta at 10 a.m. Friday. The Pioneers (27-16) lost to Shenandoah by a score of 3-2.