Skip to main content

Foresters start diamond season with a pair of losses

The Huntington University baseball team kicked off its season on Friday, Feb. 16, with a pair of losses to Reinhardt University.

Playing at an off-site venue at LakePoint due to inclement weather, the Foresters fell, 8-5, 8-3.

A season after setting a new school record with 54 home runs during the season, the Foresters went to the long ball twice for their first four runs. Daniel Lichty, in his first collegiate at-bat, led off the second inning with a solo shot deep into right for an early 1-0 lead, and three batters later, following an Adrian Perez single and Andrew Natividad double, Jake Hansen cleared the sacks with a three-run blast to left for a 4-0 lead.

The Eagles, having already played six games, hammered out four of their 12 hits in the third inning to  tighten things at 4-3, and they knotted the score in the fourth. They pushed across three more runs in the sixth.

Huntington starter Connor West went the first 5.1 innings and gave up eight hits, six runs and three walks while striking out five.

Perez wound up with three hits and a run batted in in the contest.

The Foresters struck early again in the nightcap, getting two runs in the first on doubles by Donavan Clark and Adam Roser and an infield single by Lichty. But Reinhardt plated three runs in the third to take the lead. Hansen drew the teams even with an RBI-groundout in the fourth, but it was all Eagles after that.

Lichty and Perez each had two hits for HU.

Mason Shinabery took the loss on the mound, going the first 4.2 innings and giving up nine hits for eight runs.