The Baker University baseball team saw tough competition in its opening weekend at No. 5 Rogers State University in Claremore, Okla.
The Wildcats fell in all four games of the series with respective final scores of 4-1 and 9-3 on Saturday, and 4-0 and 4-3 on Sunday.
“We couldn’t really get all of the facets of the game to run together all at once,” junior Jimmy Gricol said. “The first game we played really good defense, the second game we scored some runs, the third game we couldn’t get our offense going, and the fourth game we made some mental mistakes on the field, but had pretty good pitching. If we can put them all together, I think we can do good things.”
Gricol was the starting pitcher for Baker in game one. Despite the loss, Gricol gave up only six hits during his five innings on the mound. He recorded two strikeouts and felt that “defensively, it was (the) best game of the weekend.”
“It was the first game of the season and you could tell people were playing with emotion,” Gricol said. “We weren’t tired, we minimized errors and we played good defense.”
Baker’s lone run of the game came from an RBI single hit by senior Justin Lane to bring senior Bryan Kindle home.
In game two, the Wildcats saw a bit more success on the offensive end.
After the Hillcats came out of the second inning with a 3-0 lead, Baker responded with two runs of its own in the top of the third. Senior Matt Fry sent sophomore Tevin Thompson home with an RBI on a fielder’s choice, and freshman Neal Boyce scored on a sacrifice fly from Kindle.
Junior Caleb Lee was the starting pitcher for the Wildcats in game two and received the loss after giving up six walks and six earned runs. Sophomore Kyle Pattrick took over for Lee in the bottom of the fourth inning and limited the Hillcats to one run in his first time ever pitching for the Wildcats. Freshman Justin Bye closed the game and gave up one run in his debut inning on the mound as well.
After working with the younger pitchers during the fall, Gricol thought that “the newcomers did really well for their first time out on the field.”
Two more freshmen received playing time in game three on Sunday afternoon. After junior Thomas Hawkins gave up eight hits and two earned runs as the starting pitcher for the Wildcats, freshmen Ben Makela and Derek Schupp each threw an inning, respectively.
In game four, Baker out-hit the Hillcats 8-6, but came up short to lose the game by one run. Fry led the team with two hits out of three at-bats.
Despite the sweep, Gricol has positive expectations for his team as they will improve and get their game together.
“I think we need to work on the task at hand instead of looking at the big picture of winning baseball games,” Gricol said. “I think we need to focus on winning plays and playing in the moment as we progress this season.”
Baker will return home to play Saturday and Sunday as it hosts Dakota State University for its first games of the season at Sauder Field. Game one of the home-opening doubleheader will begin at 1 p.m. Saturday.
