Highland Heights, Ky. — Four Youngstown State players hit a home run, and Jacob Gehring and Mitchell Seymour combined for a three-hit shutout on the mound as the Penguins beat Northern Kentucky 10-0 on Friday at the Bill Aker Baseball Complex.
Matt Thompson hit one of those four round-trippers for the Penguins while finishing with a game-high three RBIs, and Ian Francis doubled twice and scored three times. That duo provided plenty of punch to back Gehring, who scattered three hits and walked three batters in six innings. Gehring struck out seven batters and recorded his fourth win of the season, and Seymour came on to get the final three outs of the shortened seven-inning affair in conjunction with the Horizon League's run rule.
Youngstown State has won four of its last five games overall and six of its last eight contests in Horizon League play. It will go for its third straight Horizon League series win on Saturday at 1 p.m.
Francis and Thompson helped spark the Penguins in the second inning as they took a 1-0 lead on the Norse. Francis hit a leadoff double, and Thompson's sacrifice bunt put him on third with one out. Francis later scored on a wild pitch with two outs for the game's first run.
Francis also led off the fourth with a double, and his two-bagger sparked two runs by the Penguins. Thompson followed with an RBI single to left center to up the margin to 2-0, and Teddy Ruffner kept the hit streak going with a single. A wild pitch moved both runners up 90 feet, and Thompson raced home on an RBI groundout by Chase Franken.
The long balls all happened in the fifth through seventh innings as the Penguins grew their lead. Brett Stanley hit the first one of the game to left center to lead off the fifth, and Eli Brown hit a two-run homer to the same area off reliever Jared Teke to increase the lead to 6-0.
Stanley then led off the seventh with a double, YSU's third leadoff double of the game, and Alejandro Covas followed with a two-run blast to left center to up the margin to 8-0. Teke walked Francis for his final batter, and Thompson greeted Ryan Pehrson with a two-run blast to center to give the Penguins their 10-run advantage.
Stanley joined Francis and Thompson with two hits, and Covas, Ruffner and Brown each had one hit as Youngstown State had a 9-3 edge in the hits column.
NKU starter Ben Gerl was charged with five runs on five hits and five walks in five innings of work, and the Penguins scored four runs in an inning off Teke. One run, the homer by Thompson, went on Pehrson's record.
