Round 1 to Tusculum's Steele against Indianapolis

Chase Wullenweber helped Brandon Steele (London, Ont.) Tusculum Pioneers to a win over Indianapolis.

GREENEVILLE, Tenn. --- Chase Wullenweber went 3-for-4 with a home run and five RBIs to lead Tusculum University to a 12-5 season-opening win over the University of Indianapolis Saturday afternoon at Pioneer Park.

The Pioneers (1-0) racked up a dozen hits while TU starter Gunner Becker pitched seven shutout innings in the season-opener for both teams.

And so in the battle of former London Majors head coaches, the opener went to Tusculum coach Brandon Steele (London, Ont.) over Al Ready (London, Ont.) who runs the Indianapolis program. The Canadian Baseball Network’s J.P. Antonacci wrote a feature on the match up this week.

All nine players in the Tusculum batting order reached base safely with eight posting at least one hit. The lone player not to post a hit was first basemen Trey Hinton, but he drew three walks and scored twice in the TU win.

Becker scattered five hits, walked three and struck out eight in his 96-pitch performance. UIndy starter Corey Bates suffered the loss as he went 5.2 innings, allowed five runs, eight hits, two walks and six strikeouts.

Tusculum scratched a run in the second inning as Murphy Flood reached on a two-out single and scored on Wullenweber’s double to the right field gap. In the bottom of the third inning, Daulton Martin was hit by a pitch with two outs and Brandon Trammell followed with a two-run homer to right to increase the TU advantage to 3-0.

In the top of the fifth inning, the Greyhounds (0-1) mounted a threat. After a fly out, Brandon DeWitt and Caleb Vaughn hit back-to-back singles to put runners at first and second. Alex Vela lifted a base hit down the right field line, but Trammell came up with the defensive play of the game as he threw a laser to Wullenweber at the plate and threw out DeWitt at home for the second out of the inning. Becker got a fly out to end the inning and preserve the 3-0 lead.

It remained that way until the bottom of the sixth as Jaden Steagall led off with a triple to center and later came into score on Murphy Flood’s one-out single. Wullenweber followed with a single to move Flood to third and he would score the second run of the frame on Kyle Williams’ sacrifice bunt for a 5-0 TU lead.

Tusculum added two more runs in the seventh and Wullenweber accounted for the rest with his three-run homer to left field in the eighth. UIndy scored three runs in the eighth and two in the ninth to round out the scoring.

Trammell and Flood each finished with two hits, while Martin tallied his 61st career double, which already was a new program best. It was also the 243rd hit in his career and he is now 20 away from surpassing TU Hall of Famer Josh Wolff (262 from 2003-2006).

The trio of Trey Smith, Hunter Waning and Alex Vela finished with two hits each for the Greyhounds.

The two teams will close out the weekend series on Sunday with a noon doubleheader at Pioneer Park.