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Box Score 2
The College of Mount St. Joseph baseball team got off to a fast start on Friday afternoon at Hanover College, but allowed three big scoring innings by the Panthers as they dropped the opener of the three-game weekend series, 13-9. The Lions, 12-23-1 overall, 7-16 in the HCAC, will resume action on May 3 at Hanover when they play a doubleheader against the Panthers.
Rob Shaw (West Chester, OH/Lakota West) got the Mount on the scoreboard first when he plated two runs with a single in the first inning. The Lions would hold that advantage, 2-0, until the third inning when Hanover erupted for five runs on six hits and a Mount error. They would add identical four-run innings in the fifth and sixth innings to push their lead out to 13-2. The Lions would post their own high-scoring inning in the eighth inning, scoring six times on four hits and three Hanover miscues. Casey Wagner had the big hit in the inning with a grand slam home run - his first home run of the 2014 season. Nick Browning (Fairfield, OH/Hamilton Badin) added an RBI double in the ninth inning for the final margin.
The Lions had 14 hits in the game, with Michael Leytze (Cincinnati, OH/La Salle), Shaw, Browning and Wagner leading the way with two hits each. Shaw also had three RBI. Brandon Polking (Cincinnati, OH/St. Xavier) started on the mound and was tagged with the loss, falling to 3-5 on the season. Three Mount relievers also saw action in the game.
