Over the weekend, the Wright State baseball team wrapped up their series sweep on the road over UIC by defeating the Flames 9-7 Saturday afternoon.
Traditionally, the Wright State-UIC series is one of the biggest rivalries in the Horizon League, and despite the gap in the win column for both squads, the Flames still gave the first place Raiders everything they could handle, including erasing a 7-3 Raider lead in the sixth inning of game three of the series.
UIC fought back to tie it up at seven, however a run from Jeff Limbaugh off of a passed ball, and another run from Michael Timm on a sacrifice fly would give the Raiders the lead and would hold on for the 9-7 victory.
With the sweep, the Raiders have now improved to 21-16 (15-2 HL) and still hold the first place spot in the Horizon League standings.
The biggest story to come out of the weekend was not just the sweep of the UIC Flames on the road, but the hot streak and the play Limbaugh, who was able to hit over .500 with five RBI’s and four scored runs over the weekend. Those numbers were good enough to not only lead his team over the Flames but also to earn the Horizon League Batter of the Week, the third Raider to earn the honor this season.
“He hit .500 over the weekend and they were all big hits. They weren’t when we were losing or ahead by a lot of runs. They were all big at bats in big situations that either led to runs or knocked them in so I was proud of him. He has really been hitting the ball well the last couple of weeks, so it’s been fun to watch,” Lovelady said.
The next league series for the Raiders will be this weekend as they hit the road to take on Oakland in a three game series.
Despite Oakland being last in the Horizon League and being swept by the Raiders earlier on in the season, Lovelady continues to remind his team that they could have lost any of those games, including the 14-inning marathon game that the Raiders escaped with the 5-4 home victory.
“I am going to be pounding it into the heads of these guys that they pitched really well against us last time so we need to come out with a little more energy and a little better at bats then we did the last time to over come that,” said coach Lovelady.
