Throughout the first three games to start the 2024 regular season, the Shawnee State baseball program showed marked improvement throughout against Georgetown (Ky.).

That improvement only continued to show in spades Saturday afternoon at VA Memorial Stadium in Chillicothe.

Playing a Madonna (Mich.) baseball program that won 36 contests and earned an NAIA Opening Round bid after winning the Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference (WHAC) Championship in 2023, Shawnee State showed no signs of relent, battling back from an early 7-0 deficit after three innings to close to within a 7-5 margin before falling by that score in Game 1.

In Game 2, the Bears, trailing by a 3-2 margin entering the bottom of the seventh frame, exploded offensively as Shawnee State plated five runs including back-to-back home runs by Zach Gaspar and Luis Meija to take a 7-3 advantage, ultimately proving to be more than enough as SSU took home a 7-5 victory of its own in the second contest.

Shawnee State, who grinded out its 10 runs in the opening three-game set against Georgetown, had one extra base hit in the three-game set against the Tigers -- but upped that to five extra base hits in Saturday's twinbill alone, with Gaspar notching home runs in Game 1 as well as in Game 2.

Meija's own seventh inning jack and doubles by Nolan Tressler and Eric Oakes led the offensive output for the Bears, who notched 14 hits in addition to its 12 runs scored across the two contests.

Game 1

Needing a lift with the Bears down by a 7-0 margin following four home runs by Madonna in the first three innings of play, Shawnee State junior Zach Gaspar helped to give the Bears a punch offensively.

Following a leadoff walk by Hunter Warner to start the fourth inning of play, Gaspar's single helped move Warner into scoring position, and after a walk by Meija and an RBI single by Diego Mendoza, Gaspar scored on a wild pitch. A sacrifice fly RBI by Ryan Scott and an RBI single by Eric Oakes helped the Bears to close to within 7-4 after the fourth frame.

Due to the effectiveness of the hitting order in the fourth frame, the lineup cycled back around to Gaspar in the fifth inning, who, with one out in the stanza, collected the first of his two homers with a shot to right field to allow the Bears to close within 7-5.

Shawnee State was only able to get one runner on via an error over the final pair of frames -- but SSU caught a groove that remained in place in the second contest.

Game 2

Trailing by a 1-0 margin after three innings of work, it was Gaspar who stepped up once again -- as after a walk, a hit batter and a passed ball that put Tressler and Par Rockhold in scoring position, Gaspar brought the pair in with his two-RBI single to center field, giving Shawnee State a 2-1 lead through four innings of work.

Madonna rallied with a run each in the top half of the fifth and seventh frames to take a 3-2 advantage, but the Bears KO'ed the Crusaders with a five-run bottom seventh where Shawnee State did all of its scoring damage with two out in the inning. A walk was followed by a single from Tressler, and after moving into scoring position, Tyler Lund scored on a balk.

Noah Sniadach's walk then brought up Gaspar, and with the score knotted at three runs apiece and two out in the seventh frame, Gaspar drilled a three-run homer to right -- which was then followed by Meija's own homer to left to give Shawnee State a 7-3 lead after seven innings of work. Madonna cut the lead in half to 7-5 after eight innings of play, but got no closer as a two-out baserunner via a walk was all that the Crusaders were able to muster.

Additional

Shawnee State (1-4) has scored 22 runs to its opponents' 29 and have lost just one game by more than two runs so far this year. The Bears, last season, were outscored by a 59-17 margin, alone, through its first six affairs and lost three of those contests by 10 or more tallies.

Gaspar led the Bears in Saturday's doubleheader by going 4-for-8 with two home runs, six RBI and three runs scored. Meija (2-for-5, home run, two walks, two runs scored) and Tressler (2-for-5, two walks, double, two runs scored) each hit .400 for the day with a pair of walks while Oakes and Mendoza each went 2-for-7 with a double and an RBI apiece.

The Shawnee State baseball program will be back in action next Saturday and Sunday (Feb. 17 and Feb. 18) with a trio of road contests at Cumberlands (Ky.). The first contest for Saturday afternoon is set for 1 p.m.

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