WESTERVILLE, Ohio – It was a cold and very chilly afternoon at Fishbaugh Field on Wednesday afternoon, but the Otterbein baseball team was able to (finally) play its 2024 home opener against Wittenberg to begin the second half of the regular season.

A rather quick game unfolded between the non-conference schools, with the Cardinals plating all of their runs in the middle innings to later emerge 6-4. The triumphs marks a seventh-straight victory for the club, moving to 16-5 overall.

Wittenberg, having played a very challenging schedule thus far against the likes of Christopher Newport, Lynchburg, Eastern Connecticut and Marietta, falls back to 7-11 on the spring with plenty of baseball ahead.

The game remained scoreless across the middle of the fourth until Brayden Quincel launched a solo moonball over the left-center field fence, marking his ninth of the season and 29th as a college player. That moves him into third place alone in the program record books.

Witt responded with a solo blast of its own in the bottom of the fifth, and then took the lead on a poke single through the right side. Despite that semi-tough ending, freshman Grady Kehr (2-0) threw five solid frames to earn his second W on the bump. He struck out five batters in the process.

The Otterbein bats provided Kehr that victory with a two-out push in the bottom of the fifth. A grounder off the bat of Quincel was missed at third base, allowing the first of three unearned runs to come across for the Cards. After a pitching change, Gavin Thompson was hit by a pitch and Max McCann rocketed a 2-RBI double into the alley in right-center.

Freshman Brady Heagen entered in the top of the sixth and also threw admirably, allowing just one run over the next 2.1 innings of work to keep the home side in front. Senior Nick Plucinski later came on to help survive an eighth-inning jam, where the bases were loaded (with just one out) before he induced a pair of popups.

He then weathered a brief solo homer in the ninth as Wittenberg fought to the finish, charting a pair of backwards K's and then a game-ending flyout to Gavin Wolf in right field. The effort marked his third save of the season.

The Cardinals will stay at home to conclude the week and resume conference action, hosting cross-town rival Capital on Good Friday at 1 p.m. Head Coach George Powell will enter the doubleheader with 598 career wins.