Baseball claims No. 2 spot with series win

UIC’s Ryan Boss grabs the ball. The Flames face Purdue today.

The baseball team moved into sole possession of second place in the Horizon League with a series finale win Sunday at Youngstown State, 5-4.

The Flames beat the Penguins, 15-11, Friday but lost Saturday’s game, 12-7.

Freshman pitcher Ian Lewandowski worked efficiently on the mound Sunday, allowing just two earned runs and seven hits in eight innings for his fourth win of the season.

Sophomore outfielder Tyler Detmer tallied three RBI, going 2-of-4 from the plate. Mike McKinley secured his first save of the year.

“We played with great intensity,” head coach Mike Dee said.  “The whole weekend was very intense and I thought we handled it well. We are very pleased to win the series against a good club.”

After two scoreless frames, UIC (19-17, 8-7) lit up the board first with two runs in the third inning. Redshirt senior Ryan Shober reached base on a walk, then stole second. Junior John Coen sent Shober to third, but Shober was thrown out on the next play as redshirt junior Andres Ortegano reached first on a fielder’s choice. Coen and Ortegano advanced off a wild pitch before Tyler Detmer drove them home with a double down the left-field line.

The Penguins scored in the bottom of the third and gained the edge in the fifth, 3-2.

The Flames quickly answered with two runs in the top of the sixth to recapture the lead, 4-3. UIC played small ball as Alex De LaRosa and Joe Betcher were plated on sac bunts from Alex Jurich and Shober.

In the ninth inning, Detmer gave the Flames a two-run lead, driving in Ortegano on a RBI single. That run proved to be valuable when the Penguins scored a run in the bottom of the ninth, but the Flames held strong to claim their second consecutive series against Youngstown State.

The Flames head to Purdue today for a 5 p.m. match before competing at Milwaukee this weekend.