It wasn’t easy, but the Highland baseball team was able to close out a season sweep of Marion Harding on baseball on Wednesday.

The Scots overcame an early deficit to open up a 5-1 lead on the Presidents, but then had to sweat out a seventh-inning comeback bid before closing out a 5-4 decision.

“Tip your cap to Marion Harding,” said Highland coach Don Kline. “They kept fighting. They put some baserunners on, put a little pressure on us, gave me a couple more grey hairs and made us go deeper in the pen than we wanted to.”

Highland was in a deficit almost from the very beginning of the game, as a pair of errors led to Harding manufacturing a run in the top of the first inning. However, the Scots immediately got that score back to tie the game in the bottom of the frame.

Brock Church reached on a Harding error and, with one out, took second on a miscue when the Presidents tried to pick him off first. An infield hit by Zach Church moved him to third, allowing him to score on a Jayden Collins sacrifice bunt.

Zach Church then dominated the Marion bats for the next five innings, only allowing a total of one baserunner during that span.

“I thought the pitcher, Zach Church, did a really nice job,” said Kline. “He was around the zone all night long. He’s a very poised young man.”

The Highland hitters gave him a good bit of help, scoring twice in both the third and fifth innings. In the third, both Zach Church and Collins tallied one out singles and Kort Sears followed with a two-out single to score Church. While Sears was thrown out trying to take second base, Collins was able to score during the ensuing rundown to give the home team a 3-1 advantage.

Then, in the fifth, Zach Church led off with a double and advanced to third on a grounder by Collins. Sears also hit a ground ball, but it was misplayed by Harding to put him on first base and get Church home. Sears then stole second and moved to third on an errant throw and was able to score on a Zachary Schmidt groundout.

While Highland led 5-1 going into the seventh, Kline felt it could have been more. The team stranded runners on second and third in the second inning, on first and third in the fourth and on second and third in the sixth.

“It would have been nice to put another one or two runs across there,” he said. “We left some guys on base late in the game. Those are the things we have to work on in practice. When you have opportunities to score guys in scoring position, you have to. If not, the baseball gods will punish you and they almost did.”

With Church approaching 80 pitches, the Scot coaches decided to take him out of the game and put Hayden Kline on the mound. After getting the first out, he gave up two straight singles, but then induced an infield fly pop-up to get the second out.

However, the third out would be hard to get. Tracey Watson and Elijah Sayre picked up back-to-back hits to tally three runs and make it a 5-4 game with the tying run on first and the go-ahead score at the plate.

Highland would be able to preserve the win, though. Drew Altizer entered the game in relief and got a quick pop-up to give the Scots another league victory.

Kline noted that, with a young team this year, he’s very pleased with how they’re attacking the challenge of playing in the MOAC.

“If you told me that, going into game 10, we’d be 8-1, I’d have been ecstatic and take it in a heartbeat,” he said. “The boys have played really tough. I think the hardest thing for young guys to understand is how hard it is to win a conference game. At the end of the day, that’s a talented ball club over there. They weren’t going to go out without a fight.”

Rob Hamilton can be reached at 419-946-3010, ext. 1807. Connect with him on Twitter at @SportsMCS