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WESTERVILLE, Ohio – The Otterbein baseball team swept an action-packed home doubleheader against the University of Mount Union Saturday afternoon, winning by scores of 11-10 and 10-7 at a sunny Fishbaugh Field.

The Cardinals, winning their fifth-straight Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC) game and seventh of the last eight, improve to 24-7 on the season and a solid 10-4 within league play. Otterbein remains tied in second place with Baldwin Wallace as the top-four teams have begun to separate themselves in the standings.

Otterbein won a wild game one against the Purple Raiders (16-16, 6-8 OAC), with the matchup featuring a handful of lead changes throughout the initial innings. The Cards led 6-4 entering the fourth frame, but Mount Union strung together a two-out rally and ultimately exited with an 8-6 advantage.

Otterbein later faced a 10-6 deficit midway through the seventh, but stayed the course and ultimately plated three runs, with two outs, that brought the gap to just 10-9. Designated hitter Pat Birrer came up with a timely 2-RBI single down the left-field line before catcher Stephan Hernon followed with an RBI-single through the left side.

Cardinal left-hander KC Brown got Mount Union to ground out with the bases loaded in the top-half of the eighth, and then second baseman Taylor Hutchison tied the contest with one of the better at-bats in the bottom of the inning. He ripped a two-out RBI-single to left field (out of an 0-2 count) that brought home J.C. Gibson and locked the matchup at 10-10.

Junior closer Caleb Norton came on to help leave two Purple Raider runners stranded in the top of the ninth, and then centerfielder Tyler Kent promptly erupted the home crowd, and dugout, by finishing the game with one quick swing. The senior launched a towering shot over the left-field fence, on the first pitch of his leadoff at-bat, to register his OAC-leading eighth-home run of the year and give the Cards a thrilling win.

Kent, Hutchison, Birrer and Hernon all tallied multi-hit games, with Kent also homering in the first inning as he and Birrer tallied three RBI each. Norton (2-1) earned the win on the mound while Kyle Toma (2-4) took the loss on the opposite side.

Adam Bialosky went 4 for 6 for a Mount Union team that tallied 18 hits in the game. Both sides combined for 31.

The Raiders grabbed two early runs in the rematch, but Otterbein jumped ahead with three runs in the bottom of the third on an RBI-double from first baseman Jake Simmerman, who eventually scored on a balk moments later.

Mount Union countered with two runs in the next at-bat to seize a 4-3 lead, but Simmerman responded yet again with a grand slam (his second of the season) in the bottom of the fourth to propel the Cards into a 7-4 lead. Hernon followed with an RBI-single, and so did Kent in the next inning, to put Otterbein ahead 9-4.

The Raiders never went quietly, cutting the lead to 9-7 in the eighth inning and then getting the tying run to the plate in the ninth before Norton eventually secured his fourth save of the season.

Simmerman finished with six RBI in the second outing while sophomore Craig Prince improved his record on the mound to 5-1. The right-hander allowed just one earned run over 5.1 innings and sat down seven batters. He now ranks fifth in the league for most strikeouts.

Designated hitter Christian Chiero was 3 for 4 and left fielder Brock Frentzel hit safely twice in game two, but the day belonged to Kent as he finished a perfect 4 for 4 at the plate and went a combined 7 for 9 on the day as a whole.

Otterbein is scheduled to play four road games next week, traveling to Denison and Wittenberg for non-conference matchups before heading to Heidelberg next Saturday afternoon.