In his NCAA Div. III Championships debut, Wooster ace Michael Houdek helped lead the way to an 8-5 win with five innings of work. (photo courtesy of Bret Billhardt, North Coast Athletic Conference)

WASHINGTON, Pa. – After Johns Hopkins University went ahead 3-2 via a three-run top of the fifth, The College of Wooster responded with four runs in the bottom of the inning to take the lead back and the Fighting Scots went on to an 8-5 victory in their opening game of the NCAA Div. III Championships regional, taking place at Ross Memorial Park, on Wednesday.

Wooster (35-11), the No. 3 seed, will next play the winner of Wednesday night's match-up between second-seeded Randolph-Macon College and seventh-seeded St. Joseph's College - Long Island on Thursday at 7:45 p.m.

The Scots' big fifth inning began with a couple of free passes – a walk for Chandler Dippman and a hit by pitch to Joey Gilmore – sandwiched around an out. Then, Michael Wielansky lined a single into left-center that plated two, with Gilmore crossing when the outfielder committed an error, Jamie Lackner singled home Wielansky, and Ryan Ostendorf sent a double into the left-center gap that brought Lackner around to make it 6-3.

Another walk to Dippman led to another run in the sixth as he advanced to second via a wild pitch and scored on Gilmore's single into right field, extending the Wooster lead to 7-3.

Johns Hopkins (28-14-2) pulled within two on Ryan Orgielewicz's two-run homer in the seventh, only to see Lackner leadoff the home half of the frame with a blast to left-center for a solo home run – his seventh of the season.

That was all of the scoring, though, the Blue Jays made things interesting in the top of the ninth. Their first two hitters reached against Zach Woullard, pitching his fourth inning, but he got the next two out, and after loading the bases, induced a game-ending soft liner to the shortstop.

Woullard picked up his first career save. The senior right-hander gave up the two runs on four hits and struck out four, while starter Michael Houdek earned the win (10-2). He kept Johns Hopkins scoreless for the first four innings before giving up the three-run fifth and finished with seven hits allowed.

The Scots had given Houdek a 2-0 lead to work with through four innings, tallying an unearned run in the first and then using some two-hit magic in the fourth. A leadoff walk to Jake Fling and Gilmore's 10th sacrifice bunt of the season was followed by an error and a sacrifice fly from Lackner.

Wooster's first hit – a Drew Tornow double off the wall in left-center – didn't come until there were two outs in the bottom of the fourth, then Jacob Solomon produced an RBI single.

Tornow went 3-for-4 and Lackner 2-for-3 with three RBI to lead the way for the Scots.