McKinney leads Scarlet in victory

COLUMBUS, Ohio - The Ohio State baseball team's annual Scarlet and Gray World Series was decided on the final game of the three game series with Scarlet coming out on top, 8-3, Wednesday evening at Bill Davis Stadium.

The Gray scored a run in the top of the first inning. Senior Cory Kovanda doubled sharply to left and came around to score on senior Cory Rupert's single to right.
Scarlet came back against Gray pitcher Theron Minium with two two-out runs to take a 2-1 lead. After a walk to Brian DeLucia, Ryan Cypret, Steel Russell and Joe Ciamacco all singled to plate the two runs.

Ryan Dew's RBI single in the third increased the Scarlet lead to 3-1. Scoring on the play was Dan Burkhart, who had stroked a one-out single.

Gray threatened in the fourth with two on and nobody out. But like he did Friday with the bases loaded and nobody out, McKinney got out of the jam. He struck out David Corna for the first out and then got an inning-ending and textbook, 4-6-3 double play.

Tyler Engle laid down a delicately nice bunt with one out in the Scarlet fifth. He moved to second on a throwing error on the play and went to third on a wild pitch. Minium helped himself by striking out Burkhart to get the second out of the inning. It also signaled the end of Minium's start as Nick Jones came in to try and get the third out of the inning. And he did. With one pitch he coaxed a ground out.
Scarlet starter McKinney had another nice outing. He went 5.0 innings allowing just one run off five hits. He struck out three and did not walk a batter to improve his record to 2-0 this fall.

Gray cut the lead to one run with a two-out score in the sixth. Stephens singled, stole second and scored on Matt Streng's double to left.

But Scarlet went back up by two in its half of the sixth as Burkhart doubled in Chris Griffin, who had singled with one out.

Back came Gray. With two out in the eighth and facing side-armed throwing Jared Strayer, Stephens and Matt Streng hit back-to-back doubles with Stephens scoring to make the score 4-3.

Scarlet finally put the game away with four runs in the eighth inning off a walk, a hit, a fielder's choice, and three errors to carry a 8-3 lead into the ninth inning.
Strayer shut down Gray in the ninth to earn the save.

Dan Burkhart and Ryan Cypret each had a pair of hits for Scarlet. Streng finished 3-for-4 with a pair of runs batted in while Kovanda and Stephens each added two hits for Gray.