WINTER HAVEN, FL

UMPI Baseball finally got to action on Monday afternoon into evening after their opening day yesterday was rescheduled to Tuesday. The Owls dropped game one in a shortened contest due to the rain, but after a three hour delay between games, the Owls returned with Garrett Chadwick on the mound and dominated game two to a 3-1 victory.

Game 1: 6-0 Lynx

Not much went right for the Owls offensively in game one, and defensively, it was just one bad inning that wrote the story. After the Owls set down Lesley 1-2-3 in the first, the Lynx took advantage of an error in the second, drawing first blood and went up 1-0. Lesley's starter, Jacob Nemergut, was dealing. He carried a no-hitter into the sixth inning, before Ronnie Golmon broke it up with his first career hit—and UMPI's first of 2026. Nemergut finished the day throwing six shutout innings on one hit, and an amazingly low 51 pitches.

On the offensive side for Lesley, the Lynx did their damage in the 3rd, chasing starter Mike Langley after 2.2 innings. Lesley added another in the 5^th, making it 6-0. Before the top of the 7^th, the RussMatt went under lightning delay, spelling the end of game one as it was a countable contest after four full innings.

Top Performers:

The brightest spot of game one for UMPI was Seth Espling, giving 3.1 solid innings in relief. He allowed one earned run on four hits, while striking out three Lynx.

Game 2: 3-1 Owls

After a three hour break between games due to a deluge of rain and thunderstorms rolling through, game two began with the looming threat of more inclement weather hanging over. But the bad weather never came, with precipitation never getting worse than a fine mist. The Owls started Garrett Chadwick, as he would pitch one of the best games in his storied career. Lesley did strike first again however, when a wacky fly ball in the 3rd inning with the bases loaded scored one with just one out. The Owls dug in though, inducing a ground ball to shortstop that was tailor-made for a double play. An awesome turn minimized the damage and ended the inning.

The Owls' offense continued to lay dormant into the 5^th inning, until a flukey error let Aiden Toy reach with two outs. Mason Long followed it up with a base hit to right field. That brought up Ronnie Golmon with runners on first and second. Golmon ripped a backside single to right-center, bringing in Toy and tying the game. The Owls kept handing it off to the next guy, when Diego Maldonado recorded his first college hit on the best swing of the night for UMPI. The left-handed-hitting Maldonado hit a beautiful opposite field double in the left-center gap. Speedster Ronnie Golmon scored all the way from first base, adding much needed insurance, and the Owls now leading 3-1 entering the sixth.

Garrett Chadwick handled things from there behind some awesome defense from Mike Langley at third base, and Aiden Toy behind the plate most notably, as well as some others. Chadwick had one of his best outings, retiring six of the last eight batters he faced to put a bow on the Owls first win of 2026.

Top Performers:

It was a true team win for UMPI, with the hero being Chadwick on the mound. Garrett went the distance, on an unearned run, six hits, and five strikeouts. He threw 104 pitches to get the win. Carter Murphy was the only multi-hit Owl, going 2-3 with a pair of singles. Diego Maldonado had the biggest hit with the two-RBI double. Ronnie Golmon also went 1-3 with an RBI, while Mason Long had the other hit for UMPI, who finished with five as a team.

Up Next:

The Owls will have a quick turnaround, making the commute back to Winter Haven for a 9am start on Tuesday morning. The Owls will finish the conference series with Lesley for games three and four of the week.