Marshall Baseball Recap
By Anthony Doria, FM88 Sports
April 16, 2026
HUNTINGTON, W. Va. (WMUL-FM) — On Wednesday, Marshall baseball traveled to a familiar place to head coach Greg Beals, Columbus, Ohio, to take on the Ohio State Buckeyes.
This was Marshall’s first trip to Columbus since Beals took the Marshall job after he left Ohio State, as the Herd was looking to beat the Buckeyes for the first time since 2010, and get only its third win against the Buckeyes in school history.
The Herd started fast, taking a 2-0 lead in the first inning with a pair of RBI singles from Jackson Halter and AJ Havrilla. The Buckeyes would get one back and make it 2-1 after the first inning.
After a couple of scoreless frames for both teams, the Buckeyes would pile on five runs in the fourth as they were able to get to Hunter Richardson and Peyton Jackson to make the score 6-2.
Marshall would inch closer in the next half inning, taking advantage of walks and a couple of fielding errors to scratch a run across in the fifth inning.
Blaine Albright pitched a scoreless frame, and Marshall continued to inch closer in the sixth. Cooper Hinson would get a double to score Tyler Kamerer after he walked to cut the lead to two. The Herd still wasn’t done, as a walk and a single would load the bases. Oliver Service hit a groundball that looked like an inning-ending double play, but Service beat the relay throw, which allowed Hinson to score, making the score 6-5 heading into the later stages of the contest.
Ohio State looked primed to answer as it loaded the bases with one out in the bottom half of the sixth. After Albright got a strikeout for the second out, Marshall called on Sophomore AJ McAnnich to end the threat. He wasn’t phased as he struck out Dane Harvey to strand the bases loaded and keep the deficit at one. It’s worth noting that Harvey, at that point in the game, had a double and a home run and is one of Ohio State’s premier bats, showing how big of a strikeout it was for McAnnich.
Marshall was still trailing by one in the 8th inning, but this inning proved to be the deciding one of the game.
With one out, Halter picked up a single, his fourth hit of the game. Service would then hit a single, and a throwing error would allow Halter to score all the way from first to tie the game at 6-6.
After a walk to Cleary Simpson and Jackson Golden getting hit by a pitch, the bases would be loaded for Shortstop Jack Smith. In a 0-2 count, Smith would loop a single down the line in right field to score Service and Simpson to give Marshall an 8-6 lead. Evan Bottone would score Golden on a sac fly to make it 9-6.
Ohio State answered with one run in the 8th, but Marshall would score two in the 9th as Cam Harthan scored on a Halter double, and a sac fly by Service scored AJ Havrilla, making the lead 11-7.
It wasn’t just the bats and pitching getting it done for Marshall. Cam Harthan would be in center field for the 9th after he pinch ran for Hinson at the top of the 9th. On the second pitch of the inning, the Buckeyes looked to have a home run to get a rally started, but Harthan leaped at the wall and made a catch of the year robbery to keep Ohio State off the board.
Marshall held on for the 11-7 win, its second quad two or above win on the year. The win also jumped them 13 spots in the RPI rankings. They move to 17-18 on the year and begin a three-game conference series on the road against South Alabama this weekend.