WILMORE, Ky. --- The Asbury baseball team hosted Oakland City University on Wednesday evening for their first home game of the season. These two previous conference foes last met in the 2021 season in a hard fought series where AU came away with three victories. This time around Oakland City got out to a very early lead that Asbury would not be able to recover from.

Holten Handel got the nod for Asbury making his fourth appearance of the year but first start. The Oakland City bats came out hot getting 7 early hits that would lead to 7 runs, moving Handel out of the game in 1.2 innings. This 7-0 lead for Oakland City in the 2nd inning proved to be enough as the Oaks held on to defeat AU 9-2.

After the 2nd inning the two teams played back and forth baseball but Asbury could never make the push they needed to get back into the game. The main bright spot of the evening for AU were the six bullpen arms that followed Handel out of the bullpen to allow only 4 hits and 2 runs in the final 7 innings of the game (Caleb Poll, Ethan Cartwright, Josh Head, Cameron Crick, Noah Brown, Bobby Vasquez). 

The Asbury offense looked to be threatening to chip away at the 7-0 deficit in the bottom of the 3rd with the first 2 hitters on base (Cam Weaver and Noah Brown) but would be turned away by Oakland City's Garrett Whiteker getting the next three AU batters out. AU managed to score 1 in the 5th and 1 in the 6th but that would be all as the Oakland City pitching staff would have their number in this matchup. 

* Kaiden Zacharias had another mult-hit game for the Eagles going 2-4 with an RBI

* Nathaniel Frank also had 2 hits with an RBI and a stolen base 

* Cam Weaver was on base 2 out of 3 at-bats with a hit and walk, scoring 1 of the 2 AU runs (Matthew Johnson scored the other run)

* The pitchers out of the bullpen for AU were a major bright spot, providing 7 innings of work combined with only 4 allowed hits and 2 runs (Caleb Poll, Ethan Cartwright, Josh Head, Cameron Crick, Noah Brown, Bobby Vasquez). 

* Oakland City scored 2 in the first and 5 in the second to get an early lead AU couldn't recover from

* AU allowed Oakland City to work 7 walks, which were key in their run production in the early innings

* Oakland City's pitching staff only allowed 2 runs on the night, led by Gerrett Whiteker going 4 innings of scoreless to set the tone of the game

"Oakland City did a good job of coming out early being ready to play and getting a lead on us. They took advantage of some early mistakes from us and we just couldn't ever bounce back in the way we needed to. We never want to lose, but this is a learning game for our team and I believe it is definitely going to make us stronger moving forward. We learn and we move on. "

     * Assistant Coach Colton Back

AU will play at home again on Saturday as they host Trine University for a doubleheader at Cecil Zweifel Field in Wilmore, KY at 1 PM.