Owensboro, Ky. – The Kentucky Wesleyan baseball team began G-MAC play with a doubleheader split vs. Findlay on Friday afternoon at Panther Park.
Wesleyan (8-9, 0-1 G-MAC) had the bats working all day. After going down in order in the first frame, Tate VanHooser got the scoring started with a solo home run, his third of the season, to put the Panthers up 1-0 in the second.
Later in the frame, after Reece Davis lined a double, Cade Gudalis smashed his first home run of 2025 to put up two more runs. Liam Hutson capped the inning off with an RBI double to score Logan Molnar after the latter worked a walk, sending Wesleyan to the third inning with a 4-0 advantage.
That was all the offense starter Evan Oakley (W, 6.0 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 13 SO) would need, but the Panthers gave him plenty more as Davis hit a two-run home run in the third to tack on two more. In the fifth, with Oakley still shutting out the Oilers, the Panthers used three consecutive singles by Gudalis, Molnar, and Hutson to load the bases for Rhett Dysholm, who drove in two more with another single to increase the Panthers lead to 8-0.
Findlay managed their only run in the top of the sixth (unearned) before Wesleyan had a big bottom half of the inning. Hutson, Dysholm, and Braxton French each singled to load the bases again, and Davis later took advantage with a bases-clearing triple to add three to the Panthers total. Elijah Stockton followed with a single to score Davis, making the score 12-1.
David Castleberry came in to record the final three outs. The righty pitched around a walk and an error to strand three and finalize the 12-1 triumph.
Davis had three hits, a double, a home run, and four RBI, Hutson tallied three hits, a double, and an RBI, and both Gudalis and VanHooser had a home run and two RBI.
Oakley's 13 strikeouts are tied for third in school history in a single game, along with Alex Franzen (2020) and Devin Smith (2019).
In the second game of the afternoon, the action kept coming. Working against Panthers starter Cole Peaslee, Findlay struck first with a sacrifice fly to go up 1-0.
Wesleyan did not wait long for an answer. Hutson led off with a single and Dysholm followed with his third home run of the season to put the home team up 2-1.
The Oilers tied it in the second before a couple quiet half innings went by. In the bottom of the third, Colson Perry continued the success at the plate with his first homer of 2025 and, soon thereafter, Davis launched his second home run of the day to make the score 4-2 in favor of the Panthers.
After four strong innings from Peaslee, Bryant Byrd relieved him in the fifth and kept the Oilers at bay. In the Panthers turn at the plate in that frame, Hutson led off with his first home run of 2025, Perry followed with a double, and Dysholm came up next and launched his second big fly of the game to build Wesleyan's advantage to 7-2.
Findlay added a run in the sixth before things unraveled for the home team in the seventh. The Oilers hit back-to-back home runs to begin the inning vs. Zach Taylor, and he would eventually lead the game with the Panthers up just one run with still no outs. Josh Tucker was called on to try and strand the tying run on second, but Findlay was able to tie it before hitting a three-run home run to cap off a seven-run seventh frame.
The Panthers were able to get the tying run to the plate in the bottom of the seventh but couldn't get a run across in the 10-7 defeat.
Dysholm had a career game with two home runs and four RBI, Hutson and Perry each had two hits and a homer, and French recorded two hits in the battle.
Wesleyan is back at Panther Park this Sunday to wrap up the series against the Oilers. The doubleheader is set to begin at 12:00 PM with the first game being seven innings and the second being a nine-inning affair.
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