Northwood’s baseball team gave starting pitcher Kevin Okuda plenty of support Tuesday afternoon and the sophomore responded with a solid effort against University.
The Timberwolves scored five runs in the first inning and went on to defeat University, 10-1, in a Pacific Coast League game at Northwood.
Okuda (3-1) went the distance, allowing just four hits. He struck out four and walked one.
“The kid is an outstanding competitor,” Northwood Coach Rob Stuart said of Okuda. “He just has great instincts for the game. He knows how to make the big pitch and he threw a complete game against a very good team; that says something.”
University (5-3-1, 1-1) scored a run in the first inning. Kai Ho doubled and came around to score.
But in the bottom of the first inning, Northwood broke the game open scoring five runs on four hits and also took advantage of two errors, a passed ball, a wild pitch by starter Taketo Kai.
Steevie Feeko and Chandler Gaspar drove home runs on groundballs and Josh Lopez and Austin Vonblasingame had RBI singles. Leadoff hitter Max Gleit came home on a wild pitch.
Northwood added two runs in the third, two more in the fourth and another in the sixth inning.
Matt Locklear went 2 for 2 with two runs scored for Northwood. Vonblasingame was 3 for 3 with two runs scored and two RBI and Brandon Kim was 2 for 3 with three RBI.
“They played really well and they clobbered the ball and played good defense and got after us pretty good,” said University Coach Chris Conlin. “Northwood has a really good program, Rob does a good job and his staff does a good job and they got after us.
“We gave up five unearned runs, they hit the ball really well and we didn’t play good defense.”
University opened league play with a 2-1 victory over Corona del Mar on Friday at Corona del Mar. Jordan Scheftz went the distance to record the win.
“I thought we played really good defense and Scheftz pitched a good ball game and we had some clutch at bats,” Conlin said.
Scheftz (3-0) allowed just three hits and struck out five and also drove in a run at the plate.
