The great Mark McGwire once said, “This is a great thing that’s happening in baseball. We don’t know if it will ever happen again.” This quote means a lot to the Greenville University Panthers having 12 seniors on the roster this year and it being their last, first weekend in college baseball. Knowing that this was their last weekend, they tried to pull out all the stops to get their first opening win in 6 years. The travel to get to the top is always a rocky road, but the GU Panthers are going to walk through walls to get where everyone knows they are destined of going. A travel day is always a great adventure to bond with your teammates and go to new places as well. The GU Panthers visited Covenant College and looked at the views that great institution has on campus.
Bonding with your closest friends is always rewarding, but the bus rides to the destination
Pat Gillick once said, “Baseball is about talent, hard work, and strategy. But at the deepest level, it’s about love, integrity, and respect.” The culture of the GU Baseball Program is being players of heart and respect for the game and their opponents whom they face in the SLIAC or out of the conference.
Game 1 for your GU Panthers, Murphy started the game against Oglethorpe and threw 3 and 2/3 innings giving up one earned run and striking out 2. Andrew Torbeck, Mark Islas, and Klation Wolff had two doubles and a triple combined in the first game of the series. Lukas Whitten came in to relieve Murphy and threw very well, throwing 4 and 1/3 innings and striking out 3 hitters. The Panthers didn’t have enough offense to help out the good pitching performance by those two and lost the first game of the year 8-3.
Panthers faced Rhodes for game two. Offense showed up but Rhodes struck first in the second inning and put up another 3 runs in the 6th leaving the score at the end 12-6, Rhodes. Freshman Drew Frey got his first collegiate career RBI and senior Joe Wood hits the first home run for the Panthers in the first game on Saturday! Wolff started on the mound this game for the first time in his collegiate career. Jaxen Gibson, another freshman, made his debut throwing two innings and picking up his first career strikeout in the process!
In Game 3, Panthers faced Berry College. Berry struck early in the first four innings and didn’t hold back. The Panthers saw Frey and Landon Mokris pick up their first collegiate hits and Maltbie pitched his first career inning, picking up two strikeouts.
Austin Rexroad started for game 3 and did an excellent job pitching 3 innings, giving up no runs, striking out 3 men, and also doing a cartwheel! When asked how he felt about the team after the weekend, he said, “I felt the team played very well for our second time out on the field this weekend. We were just a big hit away from being in a one-run game several times. You could really tell the team chemistry was off the charts with several different guys getting opportunities to play.” When asked how he felt over his performance, he said, “I was just excited to get back out there and compete. I definitely missed the competition and it felt good to have a couple of good innings on the mound!”
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Panthers play this weekend on February 21st and 22nd! Make sure you come out and cheer on your Panthers!
