By: Sammy Johnson
In front of an opening night crowd of 3,183, the Pilots lost to the Tri-City Chili Peppers 4-2. It was a pitcher’s duel until the very end when Tri-City hit a 3-run home run in the top of the tenth.
Trey Morgan (VMI) made the play of the game in the top of the third inning, where he made an outstanding diving catch in left-center field to save a run.
Tri City opened up the scoring in the seventh inning with a double to left field, making it a 1-0 game.
Down 1-0 in the bottom of the ninth inning, the Pilots were able to scrape across a run when Trey Morgan (VMI) scored on a sacrifice fly by Chris Martinez (Univ. of Arts and Science). Morgan’s speed manufactured this run, stealing second base and moving up to third on a groundout.
After the home run by Tri-City, the Pilots had to try to put together runs in the bottom of the tenth. A hit-by-pitch, an error, and an infield single by Mason Dunaway (JMU) gave the Pilots life. Pinch runner Marc Cisco (Queens College) was able to score a run on a wild pitch to make it 4-2, but that was ultimately the final score.
Coach Hank Morgan talked about the resiliency of his team.
“Loved the way we fought tonight,” he said. “You can’t win games without fighting for it, just came up a bit short today. With that type of resiliency, we should win a whole lot of games.”
Both Cole Stanford (Lenoir-Rhyne) and Barham White (LSU-Eunice) recorded a caught stealing tonight. Two Chili Peppers tried to steal a bag today and both were thrown out.
Brian Ereu (Univ. of Arts and Science) had a great start for the Pilots, pitching 5 innings of 4 hit, no-run ball with four strikeouts, finishing each with a fastball. Todd Mozoki (JMU) and Daniel Kiritsis (Bergen CC) had impressive outings out of the bullpen, each giving up no runs.
Coach Morgan had great things to say about the pitching staff.
“Loved the performance of the pitching staff,” he said. “Everyone threw well, we’ll win a lot of games if our guys keep throwing like that.”
The Pilots are back in action Saturday at home against the Morehead City Marlins.