David Hughes
The Tribune-Star
TERRE HAUTE —
For various reasons, mainly space limitations, the Tribune-Star rarely publishes full boxscores for Rose-Hulman’s road baseball games.
Because of that, junior Derek Dauenbaugh never got to see how his name and statistics looked from the second game of Sunday’s doubleheader at Bluffton (Ohio) University.
I’d like to rectify that, so here it goes (minus everyone else’s names):
ab r h bi
Dauenbaugh rf 5 6 4 8
Yes, Dauenbaugh scored six runs and knocked in eight while hitting two home runs, a double and a single (and walking twice) in the Engineers’ 26-11 Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference victory.
A Bloomington, Ill., native, he knocked in two runs with each of his four hits and set single-game school records with his run and RBI totals.
Even the legendary Art Nehf, who played for Rose in the 1910s and the National League’s New York Giants after that, never experienced a game quite like that.
In addition, the team tied two single-game school records Sunday — runs (26) and doubles (10).
Interestingly, Dauenbaugh also posted three hits and two runs in Game 1 of that doubleheader — won by Rose-Hulman 13-6.
Dauenbaugh was named the HCAC’s Baseball “Player of the Week,” thanks in large part to his once-in-a-lifetime performance.
“There was a pretty strong wind blowing out all day,” the left-handed Dauenbaugh admitted. “So if you got one in the air, it had a chance to go somewhere.”
“The wind was blowing out,” Rose coach Jeff Jenkins added, “but you still gotta hit it… Everything he hit was hard.”
Actually, not everything.
Dauenbaugh pointed out that his only out in Game 2 was a foul popup to the third baseman to end the fifth inning.
Other than that, he homered in the first, walked in the second, homered again in the fourth, singled in the seventh, walked again in the eighth and doubled in the ninth.
Dauenbaugh’s first roundtripper came with two outs in the first and produced the first two runs in this crazy game. It went to left-center field.
“I got a fastball,” he recalled. “I wanted to drive it and get something going.”
In the fourth, Dauenbaugh greeted a new relief pitcher with a two-run bomb that made the score 10-4 in Rose-Hulman’s favor.
“I was facing a lefty [with a runner on third base and one out],” he said. “I was looking for something I could get in the air and at least get a sac fly. But he threw me a fastball on the inner half of the plate and I turned on it.”
Dauenbaugh said he started playing baseball at age 8 and this was the first multi-homer game of his life. He now has three this season to go with his impressive .437 batting average.
“That’s really not my game — to try to hit a home run every time,” he emphasized.
“Derek’s not really a home-run guy,” Jenkins mentioned. “But he’s a good doubles guy — a gap-to-gap hitter.”
With mostly substitutes playing in the ninth inning, Dauenbaugh’s two-run double in his final at-bat sailed over the Bluffton center fielder’s head but not deep enough for his third homer of the contest.
“I think coach [Jenkins] didn’t have any other players to put in the game,” he said with a chuckle.
Jenkins didn’t realize how special of a game Dauenbaugh was having until after it was over when he looked at the stat sheet, causing Rose-Hulman personnel to start looking up school records.
“I’m not one to shoot for records,” Dauenbaugh stressed. “It was one of those circumstances where I came up at the right time every time. My teammates batting ahead of me kept getting on base and my teammates batting behind me kept knocking me in, so I give them a lot of the credit.
“To be honest, I was happier about sweeping the doubleheader. That was more important to me.”
The Engineers (18-8 overall, 8-3 HCAC) will be back in action today with a home doubleheader against conference foe Transylvania, starting at noon at Art Nehf Field.
A mechanical-engineering major, Dauenbaugh said he’ll do practically anything to help the team win twice today or any other time, even if it means laying down a perfect sacrifice bunt.
“I’m more than willing to do that,” he insisted, “anything the team needs.”
• • •
• Bonnie Ave update — Since I wrote about Bonnie Ave in this space last month, a lot has happened in the life of the 60-year-old Clinton bodybuilder.
WTWO-TV ended up doing a story on her as well. Then NBC’s “Today Show” aired a segment from that story recently.
As of Thursday, Ave (pronounced “Ah-vay”) had not seen the “Today Show” version yet, but she heard about it and hoped to see it soon.
She also competed in the annual Wabash Valley bodybuilding contests March 26 at Indiana State’s Tilson Auditorium, placing first in the women’s masters division and second overall in the women’s open division.
“I was pleased with the way my body responded to the cut diet that I was on,” she said in an e-mail this week. “I felt healthy and had lots of energy. I was able to do three one-handed push-ups! I plan to continue the same eating regimen [six small meals a day, high protein, good fat, low carb], but will also enjoy ice cream on occasion.”
Keep up the good work, Bonnie.
David Hughes can be reached by phone after 4 p.m. at 1-800-783-8742, Option 4, or at (812) 231-4224; by e-mail at david.hughes@tribstar.com; or by fax at (812) 231-4321.
