SAUGET, Ill. - For the third straight season, Webster graduate student Matt Mulhearn (Chicago Heights, Ill./Marian Catholic) took to the mound in a season opener here Saturday afternoon as for a third straight season Mulhearn was dominant as he scattered just two hits and struck out a career high 14 batters en route to tossing eight shutout innings to lead the preseason No. 3 ranked to a 5-0 win over Wartburg College at GCS Credit Union Ballpark.
Over the past three season openers, Mulhearn has been dominant on the mound for the Gorloks as he is 2-0 in openers and lowered his ERA to 0.39 in season opening starts. In his three career season openers, the 2019 Third-Team ABCA/Rawlings All-American has tossed 23 innings and has allowed 10 hits, one run, which came in the 2019 season opener against Transylvania, while walking two two and striking out 22, including the career high 14 strikeouts in Saturday's opener.
The 14 strikeouts better are tied for fourth most in a game in school history and the most strikeouts in a game by a Gorlok pitcher since Kyle Uhrich recorded a school-record tying 16 strikeouts at Westminster (Mo.) College on April 28, 2017. Mulhearn's previous career high strikeout game was 12, which was set against Iowa Wesleyan in both 2018 and again in 2019.
So with Mulhearn taking to the mound, the Gorloks, who were tabbed the favorite in the Preseason St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Coaches Poll, knew they didn't need to have their offense be in peak performance on Saturday.
The Gorloks collected five hits against Wartburg, all of the hits came off of Knights starter Dylan Gotto, who tossed 7.1 innings and along with allowing five hits and five runs (four earned), he also struck out five and walked two in his 124-pitch outing and stranded six runners on base. Mulhearn threw 116 pitches in his eight innings of work.
Webster got the scoring started in the bottom of the first inning as fourth-year junior rightfielder Adam Lovell (Lafayette, Ind./Saint Joseph's College) drew a leadoff walk and moved to third when the next batter, second-year freshman leftfielder Landon Vahle (Lee's Summit, Mo./St. Michael Archangel) reached on a single to right. Lovell would score the first run of the game on a strikeout by All-American fourth-year junior third baseman Ben Swords (Freeport, Ill./Freeport). Gotto, though, would prevent further damage as he struck out graduate student first baseman Kyler Kent (Pottsboro, Texas/Pottsboro) and forced fifth-year senior designated hitter A.J. Smith (DuQuoin, Ill./DuQuoin) to ground out to first to end the inning.
That would be all the offense Mulhearn would need as the 6-foot-3 righthander would strike out the side in the third and fifth innings and struck out two batters in the second, fourth and sixth.
Mulhearn allowed a one-out single in the first inning to Max Goodhue and a lead-off single in the fourth to JoJo McNair, who would be thrown out trying to steal later in the inning. The only other base runners Mulhearn allowed came in the fourth when Parker Ridge reached on a two-out fielding error at shortstop by fourth-year junior Matt Staker (El Cajon, Calif./Saint Augustine) and he hit Ethan Hayes with a pitch to lead off the eighth inning.
The Gorloks would collect their second hit of the season in the second inning on a single by second-year sophomore catcher Zach Goodman (Greenwood Village, Colo./Arapahoe), added a third hit in the fourth on a one-out single to right by Smith and collected its fourth hit in the sixth on an infield single by Kent, who led the Gorloks with a 2-for-4 day at the plate and had 2 RBI.
In the eighth, the Gorloks scored four runs on one hit and took advantage of an Knights error to push its lead to 5-0. Graduate student centerfielder Aron Hopp (Lincoln, Ill./Lincoln College) led off the inning by being hit by a pitch. Hopp moved to second when Lovell reached on a fielder's chocie and moved to third when Vahle reached on an error to load the bases. After Gotto struck out Swords for the first out, Kent stepped to the plate an delivered a 2-run single to center to give WU a 3-0 lead. Joey Ciero relieved Gotto and would proceed to walk the next batters, including walking freshman second baseman Bo Slaymaker (Johnstown, Colo./Roosevelt) with the bases loaded to score Vahle and give the Gorloks a 4-0 lead. Following the walk to Slaymaker, Aaron Eybers came out of the Wartburg bullpen and he got the second out of the inning, but the second out was a sacrifice fly off the bat of Staker to conclude the scoring.
Freshman Alek Elges (Littleton, Colo./J.K. Mullen) relieved Mulhearn to open the ninth as is all he did was retire the side in order, including recording a strikeout of McNair for the second out, on seven pitches in his collegiate debut.
Both team committed an error in the game and two Gorloks, Hopp and third-year sophomore second baseman Mitch Daniels (Columbia, Ill./Columbia) were hit by pitches in the game that lasted a little over two-and-a-half hours.
The two teams will conclude the season opening two-game series on Sunday, Feb. 28 with a 12 p.m. game at GCS Credit Union Ballpark.
