Delta Splits Opening Series with Newcomers

Wickes Park – The Delta College baseball team, coming off a 3-1 series win over league foe Henry Ford, welcomed the Bay College Norse for the first two games of another four-game series on Sunday.  The Norse are a NJCAA Division III program in their first year of existence and hail from Gladstone in Michigan's upper peninsula. 

Game one saw Delta explode for five runs in the first inning, highlighted by two-run Carson Longstreth blast to left field.  They would score another in the second to take a 6-0 lead before Bay College scored a single run in the fifth for the final, 6-1 Delta victory.  Starting pitcher Andy Sills went the distance for DC, throwing all seven innings while giving up just the one earned run on seven hits and striking out seven.  He improves to 2-1 on the season.

Cam Fowler had two hits, two runs and stole a bag to lead the offense along with Longstreth's homerun, double and two RBI. 

Ryley Bennett took the mound in game two for his first collegiate start.  Despite giving up a run in the bottom of the first, Delta held a 2-1 lead after one as Fowler singled and eventually came around to score on the back end of a double steal.  A Randy Rangel single scored Nick Johnson to make it 2-1.

Bay tacked on six runs in the top of the second but Delta once again came back to score four of their own in the bottom of the frame to make it 7-6.  Jake Glover and Cam Fowler each had RBI singles and Matt Fisher added a two RBI single in the inning.

Bay would score one more in the third to end the day for Bennett on the hill in favor of Jake Wright who would throw the final five innings and give up two runs but Delta couldn't recover and lost the game, 10-7.  Fowler led the offense going four-for-four with a stolen base and a run.  Nick Johnson (two hits, two steals) and Randy Rangel (single, double) also contributed. 

The split leaves Delta at 11-16 on the season and the two teams will play games three and four of the series tomorrow at 2pm at Wickes Park.