Patton Ties TU Wins Mark on Mound as TU Finishes Sweep of USF
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UPLAND, Ind. – Taylor picked up two more wins on Saturday, rolling to 6-0 and 14-4 victories to complete a weekend sweep of the visiting Saint Francis club. Matt Patton’s 10th win in game one tied the program record for wins by a pitcher in a single season.
It was a vintage Patton outing in the opener, as the senior ace breezed through five shutout innings in the 6-0 Taylor win. Patton used only 66 pitches, allowing three hits and striking out six.
Patton now stands with Travis Carsten (2010) as the only pitchers in TU history to win 10 games in a single season, and moved to within two strikeouts of matching Josh DeGraaf’s 93 strikeouts in 2014 as the most in any season in program history.
Taylor got all the offense it would need for the win after just four batters had stepped to the plate when Wyatt Whitman, Josh Lane and Tanner Watson all hit safely to build a 2-0 lead.
Lane singled and scored in the third for a 3-0 edge and singled home Brett Lawson in the fourth for a 4-0 spread. A two-run double from Andrew Kennedy in the fifth closed the scoring.
Lane ended the game with three hits, two runs, two RBI and one double and Watson also knocked in two runs.
Taylor put the nightcap away early with nine runs on nine hits in the bottom of the first and coasted to the mercy-rule, 14-4, win in seven innings.
Whitman, Lane, Nathan Targgart, Sam Wiese and Lawson all had multi-hit games, with Whitman scoring three runs, Targgart driving in five and Lane adding a triple, two more runs and two more RBI.
Kole Barkhaus improved to 2-1 by picking up the victory with another impressive relief outing. The freshman fanned five in 3.1 shutout innings, after classmate Drake Gongwer exited after 3.2 innings with seven strikeouts.
RV Taylor (39-12, 19-7 CL) will close its Crossroads League schedule on Monday at Grace (8-31, 8-16 CL) at 3:00 pm and will wrap up its regular season on Tuesday, when it hosts Manchester (18-19, 8-8 HCAC) at 6:00 pm.
