HUNTSVILLE, Ala. - The S&T baseball team picked up a win in the opening game of its four-game series with Alabama Huntsville Friday afternoon, dominating the Chargers in a 15-3 win before the second game was suspended in the fifth inning due to weather and later called and the end result was 1-0 rain shortened loss.
Game 1:
After a scoreless opening inning in the first game,
Aaron Berkhoff (Colorado Springs, CO/Cheyenne Mountain) drew a walk with the bases loaded to score
Sam Monroe (Moline, Ill./Moline) and give the Miners the early lead. UAH tied the game in the third when Landon Ezzell singled to score Garrett Bodine.
In the top of the fourth, Berkhoff drew a one-out walk and went to third after
Chase Burgess (Overland Park, KS/Blue Valley West) doubled down the left field line.
Dakota Sill (Lansing, KS/Lansing) struck out, but reached first on a wild pitch that scored Berkhoff and allowed Burgess to advance to third. Moments later,
Doug Wood (Liberty, MO/Liberty North) delivered a double down the left field line that scored both runners to give S&T a 4-1 lead.
Following a pitching change,
Garrett Weiner (Alton, IL/Marquette) was awarded first after a hit by pitch and Monroe followed with a single up the middle that scored Wood. Weiner and Monroe moved up a base on a double steal, then
Brady Voss (Lake St. Louis, MO/Liberty) brought both home on a single to left field to complete the six-run outburst in the fourth.
UAH got a run back in the bottom half of the fourth, but S&T added two more runs in the fifth on a hit by Wood that scored Burgess and a sacrifice fly by Weiner that scored Sill.
In the top of the sixth, S&T continued to press the accelerator as the Miners erupted for five runs in the inning, the first run coming on a Burgess single to the opposite field that scored Souza. Burgess scored later in the inning when Weiner reached on an infield single, then Monroe drew a walk with the bases loaded that scored Sill and
Cole Hampton (Edwardsville, IL/Edwardsville) completed the scoring in the inning with a single that scored Weiner and Wood to extend the lead to 14-3. S&T got another run in the seventh when
Logan Alexander (Olathe, KS/Olathe Northwest) singled in Burgess.
Dylan Mollett (St. Louis, MO/Oakville) pitched the first four innings and was credited with the win, while
Matthew Kaiser (St. Louis, MO/Vianney) threw two innings out the bullpen and
Nate Wodka (Allen, TX/Allen) closed out the contest, getting Ezzell to ground into a 6-4-3 double play to end the game.
The Miners outhit the Chargers 17-6 as Burgess led S&T with four hits and scored four times. Wood drove in three runs and Monroe was three-for-four with two runs batted in.
Game 2:
Game two was a pitcher's duel between S&T's
Ethan Morrow (Lenexa, KS/Shawnee Mission West) and UAH's Andre Orselli as the pitchers traded zeroes on the scoreboard for the first four-plus innings before storms rolled into the area that halted play.
The Chargers got the only run on the scoreboard in the bottom of the first on an Ezzell solo home run.
For the next three innings, Morrow and Orselli settled down and gave up zero runs on only two hits. The Miners had a threat in the fourth when Sill singled up the middle with one out, but Wood lined into a double play to the first baseman for the final two outs of the inning.
Voss had the other hit for S&T with a single in the fifth.
