BASEBALL

The Forester baseball team (5-7, 1-1) split with Spring Arbor (5-7, 1-1) Friday night on opening day of league play. It was also HU’s home opener. Frame and crew scored in the sixth of the nightcap for a 2-1 come-from-behind win after suffering a 6-4 loss in game one.

Graham Kollen pitched a one-run dandy in the nightcap for the complete-game win. Last year’s CL Pitcher of the Year scattered just five hits with the only Cougar run coming in the first on a double steal. He gave up three walks while striking out six in seven innings of work.

Huntington was quiet offensively through the first five frames, mustering just one hit, before finally manufacturing two runs in the home half of the sixth. With runners on first and second with one out, Matt Wolff found a hole in left field for a single to knock in HU’s first run. Cleanup hitter Jordan Malott then drove in the go ahead run with a sac fly.

SAU didn’t go down without a fight. Braydon Gregory kicked off the top of the seventh with a double but was picked off stretching. Another Cougar two-bagger put the tying run in scoring position. After Kollen struck out the next batter for out number two, he gave up a base on balls but then coaxed a groundout for the final out to call it quits.

While both teams logged seven hits in the opener, SAU’s at bats proved more productive. With runners on the corners in the first, the Foresters capitalized on a well-executed double steal for an early 1-0 lead. Two batters later, Malott found the hole between short and third to bring home Gregory Nolasco Berroa who had reached on an error.

Both teams scored in the second, Huntington’s on a Berroa sac fly, but it was all Spring Arbor after that. The guests tied it up in the third, took a two-run lead in the fourth and then tacked on an insurance run in the eighth before HU finally got one back in the bottom of the ninth.

After three straight free passes to load up the bases, Ryne Wheeler took a pitch in the shoulder to pull his team within two. Unfortunately their rally was cut short when the hosts got caught looking on a third strike for out number three with bases still loaded.

Tyler Papenbrock was charged with the loss. He tossed the first six innings and gave up four hits, five runs and five walks while striking out ten. His counterpart, SAU starting pitcher Kyler Hinken, finished with 11 Ks.

This is a split series so the Foresters head to SAU tomorrow for the final two games of the four-game series.