Florence, Kentucky—The Mount St. Joseph University Lions Baseball program played the first of a three game season series on Saturday, February 26. This series would be against the Quakers of Wilmington College. Despite the fact that this game was played in the Lions home stadium, the Lions would be the away team on the scoreboard. The game was close the entire way, before the program fell just short by a final score of 5-4.
With Wilmington in the field to start the ball game, their starting pitcher, would retire the top third of the Lions lineup in order. It was much of the same in bottom of the first, as the starting pitcher, Jacob Hughes would only surrender one hit, coming with two outs, while the runner would work his way to third base Hughes would retire the four spot.
With the Lions coming to the plate in the top of the second, they would quickly load the bases. First-basemen, Max Kline would drive a single, followed by Andrew Harrison and Tyler Herbers drawing walks, allowing Caleb Partin to hit a dribbler down the first base line that would slip into right-field for a two RBI single. The Lions would carry a 2-0 lead into the home-half of the second inning. The leadoff batter for the Quakers would drill a home-run down the left field, before Hughes retired the remaining batters that would come to the plate in the half inning. While to Lions were able to manufacture base-runners in their half of the third, they were not able to plate any runners.
This trend of solid defensive baseball would continue for both teams, into the top of the fifth inning. Herbers would hit into a fielders choice that would plate Kline from third, to extend the Lions lead to 3-1. In the Wilmington half of the fifth, they would match the Lions production, with an RBI single.
Carrying a 3-2 lead into the bottom of the sixth inning, the Quakers would knot the game up at 3-3. Then a two run inning in the bottom of the eighth inning by the Quakers would see the Lions fall behind for the first time in the game 5-3.
With hope still remaining the Lions were able to make an attempt to try and extend the game. With one out, Kline would single into left-field followed by a Harrison double. Herbers came to the plate with one out and two men in scoring position and drove in Kline from third on a groundout. This was the final scoring play for the Lions as they would fall just short, 5-4.
Despite the tightly contested loss, the Lions had several players turn in great performances. The fantastic freshman pair of Kline and Harrison continued their early career success, both totaling three hits. Harrison would fall just short of hitting for the cycle, with a single, double and triple and reaching base on a walk. Catcher, Tyler Herbers and Shortstop Caleb Partin would lead the team in RBI's, each with two.
The pitching performance of Hughes was impressive, giving the Lions six innings of work. In this time he would allow only seven hits, while recording five strikeouts.
With the first part of the series behind the Lions, they look forward to hosting a double-header against Wilmington to round out their three game series, after the conclusion of the series, the team will travel to Florida for spring break to play a variety of teams. For continued coverage of these upcoming games, continue to follow msjlions.com
