Baseball season is officially upon us, and that means it is time for the Greenville University Baseball Team to take action. The Panthers headed south on a late Thursday night to Memphis, Tennessee for a weekend single game with Fontbonne University and a two-game series against Rhodes College.
The Panthers came into the season pumped up Friday night against Fontbonne, but the Griffins had other plans. Fontbonne held the Panthers to just one run all game coming in the first inning after three straight singles by Ryan Taylor, Klaiton Wolff, and Sam Hodges. Taylor ended up scoring on an RBI groundout by Andrew Torbeck. Lukas Whitten got the start for the Panthers and had a quality outing as he allowed just three runs off of six hits while pitching only six innings, which is not bad for the first day out at the park. He was replaced in the sixth inning by Hunter Cullum, who came in firing and shut down his competition at the plate giving up no runs. He also had help from Chadwick Plath, who showed his potential in relief, allowing no runs as well. The pitchers had no walks in this game and struck out four batters. The Panthers came up short losing to Fontbonne in the opening game, 3-1.
Greenville played Rhodes College in their second game of the day. The Panthers had a plan, which was to come out with a win late Friday afternoon. The Panthers got their bats going in this game as they pushed across two runs in the second and third inning. Greenville got three hits from Hodges and a pair of hits from Ryan Taylor, Jaime Quesada, Devin Gumb, and Tucker Rappé. Quesada, Hodges, and Gumb each had an RBI. Hodges also had three hits in this game. Sam Alender pitched in this game and continued what the Panther pitching staff had started earlier during the day. He pitched seven innings while only giving up one run. The Panthers got their first win of the season as they took game one of two from Rhodes, 5-1.
The following day, the Lynx returned with revenge on their mind beating the Panthers 13-2. The Panthers had only one hit in this game coming from Clarence Falls III. He was the only hitter who reached base on a hit and later scored on a ground out and an error. The pitching didn’t get the job done by giving up runs in all but the first inning. Austin Rexroad was the losing pitcher for the Panthers giving up five runs on nine hits in three innings of work.
The Panthers are heading to Florida during spring break where they hope the Florida temperatures will heat up their bats so that they can come back to the cold state of Illinois and start SLIAC conference gameplay.
Media by Klaiton Wolff.
