Box Score
Wright State scored a run in four different innings and held off the Youngstown State baseball team for a 4-2 victory on Friday afternoon at Eastwood Field.
The Raiders improved to 7-0 in Horizon League play while the Penguins, who were playing their home and league opener, dropped to 0-1. Game two of the series on Saturday has been moved up to an 11 a.m. start from the original 2 p.m. time.
Phil Lipari hit a two-run homer, and Matt Sullivan added two hits for YSU, which went 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position. Three different Raiders had three hits.
Wright State starter Travis Hissong out-dueled YSU's Patrick O'Brien in a clean game. Hissong held the Penguins to two runs on nine hits while striking out seven in 7.1 innings. O'Brien was charged with three runs on eight hits and two walks in 5.1 innings. Andrew Elliott retired the Penguins in order in the ninth to earn his fifth save.
Jeff Limbaugh singled in Sean Murphy for the Raiders in the second inning to put them up 1-0, but O'Brien did a good job of limiting the damage. He induced a double play in the inning and allowed just the one run despite surrendering four hits.
Jason Shirley reached on a one-out infield single in the bottom of the third, and Lipari followed by hitting a two-run home run with the wind over the right-field wall. It was the second home run of his career. Alex Larivee and Josh White followed with singles in the third, but Hissong was able to escape.
The Raiders tied the score in the fifth when Brad Macciocchi led off with a double and scored on a fielder's choice. They took the lead on Jason Defevers' two-strike single with one out in the sixth, and John Brodner gave them an insurance run in the eighth with a solo homer to left.
The Penguins managed four hits in the final six innings, but they had a runner in scoring position three different times. Sullivan was stranded after a two-out double in the fourth, and he was thrown out trying to take third on a grounder to short in the seventh. Brent Gillespie hit a one-out double in the eighth, and Hissong walked White to put two runners on. Hissong handed the ball off to Taylor Braun, and the reliever struck out David Saluga and got Shane Willoughby to ground out to end the inning.
