KEYSER, W.Va. — After roping five doubles in the first four innings, Northern used small ball to snag a victory in the sixth inning.
With the game level at 5, Northern drew a leadoff walk, and Blake Spiker and Landon Yoder followed with textbook bunts down the first-base and third-base lines, respectively. The sacrifices were so well-placed that both resulted in base hits.
Hunter Beitzel pushed across the go-ahead run on a sacrifice fly to left, and he held Keyser scoreless across four innings of relief to allow Northern to win 6-5 on Wednesday.
“Wins are wins. That’s definitely kind of an ugly-type win, a grinder win,” Northern manager Phil Carr said. “We were good sometimes offensively, we hit some balls hard today, but we weren’t good at certain times with guys on base.”
Northern (3-2) has won three in a row after an 0-2 start. Keyser’s fourth straight loss dropped it to 1-4.
It was a back-and-forth affair that featured four ties and four lead changes, but the scoreboard settled down in the later innings. Northern scored five runs in the first three innings and Keyser scored four — the teams combined for two runs the rest of the way.
Keyser threatened in the bottom of the seventh putting the tying run at second base and the winning run at first with two outs. Beitzel responded by inducing a pop fly to Northern’s shortstop Yoder.
“We got better,” Keyser manager Scott Rohrbaugh said. “Yeah, it was still a loss, but we played 100% better than what we’ve been playing the last couple games. We’ve still got some work to do, some defensive miscues. … We put the ball in play, we bunted, we ran the bases.”
Northern out-hit Keyser, 13-8, and the Huskies committed two errors to the Golden Tornado’s none.
All five of Keyser’s runs originally reached base on walks. Beitzel didn’t walk a batter over his four shutout innings of three-hit ball out of the bullpen.
“Good teams find ways to win games like this,” Carr said. “And I told them, good teams find ways to win it, bad teams find ways to lose that one. We’ll take the win whether it’s ugly or pretty.”
Jake Chambers led the Northern lineup going 3 for 4 with a double. Emmitt Lipscomb had a three-hit day and scored three times, Spiker was 2 for 3 with a double, and Beitzel, Hunter Livengood and Caleb Hinebaugh also doubled.
Yoder, Beitzel, Livengood, Hinebaugh and Spiker all had RBIs.
Livengood had a steal of home in the third inning, taking the final 90 feet on a dropped-third strike after the throw to first. He just got a hand under the tag of catcher Hunter Harr.
Landon Tysinger doubled for Keyser, Owen Rotruck scored twice and Mikey Mongold and Layne Zacot both had two-hit days. Rotruck, Colle Holland and Zaycot drove in runs.
Keyser right-hander Lucas Williamson overcame a rocky start, in which Northern scored five runs on nine hits across the first three innings, to pitch a complete game.
Williamson limited Northern to a run on four hits over his final four frames. He finished with a line of six runs on 13 hits with seven strikeouts to one walk in seven innings on 104 pitches.
“We had very solid pitching,” Rohrbaugh said. “That’s what the last few years, when we’ve been successful, we’ve had solid pitching. … Lucas is my senior. The rest of my staff is mainly sophomores, so they’re young, but they’re learning.”
Keyser will look to bounce back when it hosts Jefferson on Friday at 2 p.m.
Northern (1-2 Western Maryland Athletic Conference) will host No. 3 Fort Hill (3-0-1, 3-0 WestMAC) on Thursday at 4:30 p.m.
The game may be moved to Garrett College, Carr said.
The Huskies are looking to avenge an 8-6 defeat at Fort Hill on March 24.
“With the pitchers we’ve got throwing tomorrow, I think we can put a pretty good defensive team out there behind them if we throw strikes,” Carr said. “I’m not sure which guy is going to start, but I’m sure all three are going to see some action.”