Eagles Lose in Game One of St. Thomas Series

Miami Gardens, FL - The Eagles packed on Wednesday afternoon to fly down to sunny South Florida for a four-game series with two Top 25 NAIA Baseball teams. The Eagles are currently sitting at the 20th spot and the Bobcats of St. Thomas riding at #8. It is a good test for the Eagles to see how they fair against the top teams in the nation.  They are coming off the season-opening series with Georgetown where the Eagles ended up 1-2 on the weekend so they are really wanting to play well and pick up a few wins against a tough St. Thomas team this weekend.

Ethan Foley would get the start for the Eagles in game one and he was able to get three strikeouts and scatter five hits over his six innings of work, but he did give up two runs in the first and three in the sixth which gave the Bobcats a 5-1 lead.

Brock Weiss would come in for Foley in the seventh inning, but he would quickly run into some trouble as he would give up five runs in just two-thirds innings before being relieved by Will Casel. Casel got the Eagles out of the seventh, but the damage had already been done. Casel had a good 1.1 innings pitching only allowing one hit during his time.

The Eagles would get one run in the first inning on Richard Castro's solo shot to left center.  The Eagles would go silent for the rest of the game until the top of the ninth and the made a 10-1 game interesting. Nash Crowell would lead off with a solo homer and then he was followed by Jamel Rookard who drew a walk and then Alex Coulter who singled to put men at first and second. Sam Kilgore came in to run for Coulter and Richard Castro would be the next batter who would get a walk as well loading the bases.

Zach Rabe would get a chance to get some runs next and he would come through for the Eagles. Rabe's single to right field would get both Rookard and Kilgore home to put four runs on the board. The Eagles now had Castro at second and Rabe now at first Jarrett Burney would ground out to short, but he did move the runners to second and third with just the one out.

Up next was Dylan Lewis who was able to put the ball in play and scored Castro from third. Rabe was out at third for the second out of the inning. Lance Dockery would be called next to see what he could do with the two outs and down by six runs. Dockery came through as well getting a triple from his hit to center field. Lewis was able to score from first on the play, however, the Eagles were stopped on the next at-bat and they would end the game on the losing end of a 10-6 game. 

With the season still early, the team is trying to find its identity and find which players are going to step up and lead this team to the level it knows that it can be. Stars are emerging on both the offensive and defensive side, but they do need to start putting it all together to have complete ball games from start to finish. The innings where the pitchers give up large runs needs to end as well as going long spells without getting a run on the board offensively. The team has definite talent and soon will be putting it all together to show they are a Top 20 team in the country. 

The team will be back for a double header on Friday starting at 3 pm and then they will have the final game with St. Thomas on Saturday at 2 pm before heading back to Georgia.