By: William Burns, Sports Editor
On Tuesday, Feb 25, the Saint Leo Lions baseball team had a matchup with the Saints from Flagler College. The Saints, traveling from Saint Augustine, entered the contest with a record of nine wins and five losses. The Lions entered the game with two wins and ten losses.
In this matchup, thirteen total pitchers were used during the game. Six of them were used by Flagler College and seven of them were used by Saint Leo. Both starting pitchers lasted for three innings, but Flagler’s pitcher held Saint Leo scoreless, while Saint Leo’s pitcher, Jeremy Peel, gave up three runs and got the loss on the day. The Flagler pitching staff held the Lions offense to four runs but kept them scoreless until the sixth inning. The Lion’s pitching staff gave up eleven runs but several of them were unearned due to errors by the fielders.
When the Lions came up to bat in the bottom of the sixth inning, they were down by a score of ten to zero, a seemingly impossible deficit. However, in this inning they got their first hits and runs of the night and cut the Flagler lead to eight runs. However, the Saints tacked on one more run in the top of the seventh inning to pad their lead and held the Lions scoreless for two more innings. In the bottom of the ninth, the Lions struck again. Senior Brett Esau hit a triple to right-center field, scoring two runs. This was the last scoring of the game, as the Lions closed out the game losing 11-5.
Despite losing the game, the Lions were able to get some pitchers some reps and try out a few things. Even with the lack of offense, Esau had a solid night with five plate appearances. He had a double, a triple, a pair of strikeouts and a walk to go along with three runs batted in. PJ Berry, Ariel Martinez, Paul Coumoulos, Mike Wyman, and Zach Benson all contributed a hit on the night.
The Lions converted seven hits, seven walks, and two errors by the Saints into 4 runs. On the other hand, Flagler converted eighteen hits, two walks, and three errors by Saint Leo into eleven runs. A good take away is that Saint Leo was being more patient at the plate and drawing more walks.
After this loss, Saint Leo Baseball fell to two wins and eleven losses on the season, and Flagler improved to ten wins and five losses.
The Lions will be traveling South to Boca Raton this weekend for their first conference road series of the season. The Lions will start off the three-game series on Friday at 2:30 p.m. vs the Lynn Fighting Knights. The Knights have seven wins, six losses, and one tie overall and are 2-1 in conference at play. At home, the Knights have won two games and tied one, so the Lions will have to come out hot if they want to take any games from Lynn at home.
