Kevin Wempe is usually making plays with his glove, but on Wednesday, Wempe made one of the biggest plays of the day with his hips.
With teammate Caleb Williamson in a pickle between second and third base during a third-inning rally, Wempe took off for home. Pittsburg State’s Trent Kavanagh was waiting on Wempe, but Wempe swung his hips to the right, sidestepped the tag and scored.
“That looked semi-athletic, didn’t it?” Wempe said. “Kind of elusive, huh?”
That’s the impression Emporia State left with Pittsburg State after a doubleheader sweep. After losing 14-2 in Game One, the Gorillas found themselves ahead 4-0 and then 9-4 in Game Two, only to watch those leads disappear without the Hornets doing much hitting.
Every time it looked as if the Gorillas had the Hornets cornered, they sidestepped, walked and finagled their way back into the game and on to a 14-10 win.
The first rally came in the first inning. After Jason Murphy hit a grand slam in the top of the inning to give Pitt State a 4-0 lead, the first three ESU hitters all walked to load the bases.
PSU pitcher Mitch Cooper finally gave the Hornets a pitch to hit and Chris Dobler took advantage, sending a low, outside fastball over the left-center wall.
ESU starter Brett Mize didn’t make it out of the first inning, and reliever Dominic King continued Emporia State’s pitching struggles when he took over in the first inning. Pitt State took back the lead with one run in the second inning and added four more in the third to take a 9-4 lead.
That’s when the Hornets started to make their unorthodox comeback. Once again, the first three ESU hitters walked, and Williamson drove in two runs with a single.
Abe Steinbach followed Williamson and laid down a bunt to try to advance Wempe and Williamson. PSU third baseman Nick Giuliani overthrew first base, and that’s when Williamson tried to make it to third, leading to the Wempe shake and bake.
Pitt State coach Steve Bever tried to argue that Wempe was tagged and he was also out of the baseline, but the umpire’s call stood.
“Guy didn’t touch me,” Wempe said. “No question.”
ESU coach Bob Fornelli, who is also the team’s third base coach, had a great angle and thought the right call was made.
“I thought he was safe,” Fornelli said. “In college baseball you can’t bulldoze, so you have to give them a path to the plate, and that’s basically what happened. He had one place to go and that was to the outside instead of running that guy over, and that’s what they called. They don’t like it, we like it.”
The Hornets added one more run in the fourth with Andy Cotton loading the bases after getting hit by a pitch, and then Williamson scoring after Jeremy Francis was also hit by a pitch.
Williamson tied the game in the fourth, reaching on an infield hit and then scoring on a Cotton RBI single.
The Hornets finally got some quality pitching in Game Two from Austin Anderson, who relieved King in the third inning. Anderson (1-0) had his best performance of the season, throwing 5 1/3 scoreless innings, giving up only three hits and no walks.
Steinbach gave the Hornets their first lead with an RBI double down the left field line in the sixth inning. Williamson, who had walked, scored on the hit. The Hornets drew eight walks and had five hitbatsmen.
“We knew we had an opportunity to come back. It really turned out to be walking guys and hitting our guys to give us an opportunity to come back in that game. Otherwise, we probably don’t come back,” Fornelli said. “I think Austin Anderson was the story of that game. He gave us those innings and threw up a bunch of big zeros.”
The Hornets’ Game One win was much easier, and that’s because they got good pitching from the start. Ben Graham started his first game since March 20 because of a shoulder injury that has kept him out of the rotation.
Emporia State’s junior ace didn’t look too rusty, yielding only one run on five hits. Graham (4-2) threw 68 pitches in five innings and said he could have kept pitching if he had needed to.
“It was great to be playing again,” Graham said. “It felt really good.”
With Graham back in the rotation, Emporia State (29-6, 18-3 MIAA) should be a heavy favorite to stay on top of the league standings. The Hornets went 10-1 during Graham’s absence, and 10 of their final 14 are against the bottom three teams in the conference standings. And as they showed on Wednesday, they know how to avoid losing — even if they have to get a little creative.
“Anybody’s got an opportunity to win games,” Fornelli said. “We’ve just got to go out and play and find ways to win games, because it’s not always pretty how we play, but we find ways to win.”
Wednesday at Trusler
Game One
Emporia State 14, Pittsburg State 2
Pittsburg State 000 101 0 — 2 7 1
Emporia State 011 444 X — 14 18 0
WP — Graham. LP — Barnes.
E — PSU: Sibala. DP — PSU 3. LOB — PSU 6, ESU 7. 2B — PSU: Rigby; ESU: Francis 2, Burkhead 2, Cotton. 3B — ESU: Williamson. HR — PSU: Murphy; ESU: Dobler, Wempe. HBP — ESU: Morrison. SH — PSU: Potter; ESU: Williamson. SF — ESU: Cotton. SB — ESU: Francis, Burkhead, Wempe. CS — ESU: Albers.
Game Two
Emporia State 14, Pittsburg State 10
Pittsburg State 414 000 001 — 10 12 4
Emporia State 404 102 12X — 14 11 2
WP — Anderson. LP — Martinez.
E — PSU: Sibala, Giuliani, Cooper, Bartling; ESU: Dreiling, Cotton. DP — PSU 1, ESU 1. LOB — PSU 4, ESU 13. 2B — PSU: Murphy 2; ESU: Wempe, Steinbach, Cotton. HR — PSU: Murphy, Thayer; ESU: Dobler. HBP — PSU: Sibala; ESU: Francis, Burkhead, Wempe, Steinbach, Cotton. SH — PSU: Ahrens, Thayer; ESU: Francis, Steinbach. SB — ESU: Crumbliss, Francis, Burkhead, Wempe, Williamson. CS — PSU: Sibala.