The Malone University baseball team improved to 26-14 on the season with a 6-0 win over visiting Tiffin University Wednesday afternoon at Massillon Jackson High School. Two weeks after downing the Dragons 17-14 in a wild offensive showcase on the road, the Pioneers received a strong pitching performance on Wednesday en route to their seventh shutout victory of the season. The loss drops Tiffin to 12-23 on the campaign.
 
Recap
Making his second collegiate start, Pioneer freshman pitcher Alex Widmer (1-0) was outstanding, tossing five scoreless innings to earn his first collegiate win. The hard throwing righty surrendered five hits and no walks while striking out three.
 
After allowing back-to-back Dragon hits to begin the third, Widmer, who was selected in the 36th round of the 2017 MLB Draft coming out of high school. showed his poise with a pair of strikeouts and a caught stealing to keep the shutout intact. He then worked scoreless fourth and fifth innings before giving way to the bullpen in the sixth. Senior relievers Trevor Beerman (1.2 IP, 1K) and Cody Ballay (2.1 IP, 2 K) combined to shut down Tiffin across the final four frames.
 
The Pioneer pitchers had plenty of support to work with as the Malone lineup generated all six of its run during the first four innings. Putting pressure on the Tiffin defense, Turner Hill swiped third with two outs in the bottom of the first and came in to score the game's first run when the catcher's throw sailed into left field.
 
In the second, Malone went ahead 3-0 on an RBI single by Damian Maglione and an RBI groundout by Nate Cobb. The Pioneers then made it a 4-0 game in the third on sacrifice fly by Matt Noel.
 
Malone finished off the scoring with two more runs in the bottom of the fourth. Hill's run-scoring single made it 5-0 before and RBI groundout by Austin White plated the sixth and final run.
 
Hill led Malone with two hits and two runs scored while Todd Ropp singled twice and scored a run. Joe Crank added his team-leading 13th double of the season.
 
Up Next
Malone returns to the diamond on Thursday, April 26th for an 11:00 am non-conference doubleheader against Wheeling Jesuit.