Waking up, Evan Nibblett was already in a good mood, turning 23 and earning his first Friday start of the season. Leaving Perdue Stadium that evening, the graduate student was in an even better mood, leading the Maryland Eastern Shore baseball team to its second win of the season and first Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference victory since 2019 in a 10-3 decision over Norfolk State University.
The Hawks now stand at 2-11 (1-0 MEAC) on the season with three more games to go against the Spartans (3-11, 0-1 MEAC) this weekend.
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be on my birthday, out on the mound,” Nibblett (1-0) said. “We just had the vibes as soon as we got here, we knew something was going to happen and we just played to our potential.”
In the first inning the Spartans were able to grab two runs when the leadoff man Raphy Rodriguez was hit by a pitch and then driven in on a triple by Steven Shaffer. A groundout to short added another as Shaffer scored.
It didn’t take long for the Hawks to even up the score in the bottom of the inning of a scattering of free passes handed out by Norfolk starter Nolan Manzer. Center fielder Bryan Widdowson was hit by a pitch in his at-bat and quickly stole second, Ryan Howe joined him on base with a walk in his. Following three passed balls by catcher Robert Beatty sandwiched over a Brian Cordell walk, both Widdowson and Howe were able to find home plate to make it 2-2.
“Their pitcher struggled to find the zone early,” head coach Brian Hollamon said. “We were able to take advantage of that and score a few runs after giving up a few runs in the first inning, I think that was a confidence builder.”
In the second and third innings neither team was able to get much going at the plate, that all changed in the fourth when the Hawks broke out for three runs in the frame. Catcher Kyle Cincinnati and first baseman Marcus Brown walked to start the bottom of the inning, then second baseman Luke Myers laid down a perfect bunt to load the bases for third baseman Ryan Davis. Davis grounded out to second but scored Cincinnati and then Dillon Oxyer hit a two-out double down the left field line to drive in Brown and Myers to make it 5-2.
Oxyer stretched his hitting streak to six games with the hit.
“We had seven walks today and we didn’t give up any, that’s how you want to play the game,” Hollamon said. “Make them make more errors, get more walks (than them).”
Those two-out hits continued in the fifth, with Myers driving in right fielder Brian Cordell, who walked to start the inning to make it 6-3 for the Hawks. Widdowson took advantage of two errors in the sixth to tack on another run.
“Luke had a nice line drive in the center of the field,” Hollamon said. “If you can get two-out hits you’re gonna win a lot of ball games, that’s for sure.”
All the while Nibblett continued to roll with his batterymate Cincinnati, facing just two batters over the minimum from the third to seventh inning. In the game, Nibblett walked no batters and struck out four while going five innings with less than 15 pitches in each visit to the mound.
“If he didn’t do that he doesn’t pitch into the eighth, it would have been six innings probably,” Hollamon said. “He had low pitch counts in a couple of innings and when you can do that you can pitch deeper into the game.”
The Shore put the game out of reach for Norfolk in the bottom of the seventh, putting up another three-spot against the visitors. Cordell was driven in by Cincinnati on a sacrifice fly after walking and advancing to third on a wild pitch, Brown hit a long double in the next at bat and was driven in by Davis, and then Davis scored on a fielding error by Norfolk shortstop Rodriguez – making it 10-3 Hawks.
Norfolk was able to snag a run in the eighth when a passed ball got by Cincinnati, though it was too little, too late for the Spartans.