SAN ANTONIO – The #1 Trinity University baseball team opened a weekend series against #7 Kean University (NJ) with a narrow 6-5 loss on Friday night.
The Tigers (5-4) have now lost three consecutive games, and the Cougars (6-2-1) have two wins in two games so far this week. Trinity out-hit Kean 12-7 but left 11 runners on base and came up just short.
Will Hellings (Summit, N.J. / Summit) pitched into the seventh inning as the Tiger starter, allowing four runs on five hits and striking out five while taking the loss to fall to 1-1.
Will Taylor (Greenwood Village, Colo. / Cherry Creek) gave up two runs on one hit in 1.2 innings of relief, and
Ryland Rangel (San Antonio, Texas / Reagan) finished the game with 1.1 scoreless innings. Each Tiger reliever had a pair of strikeouts as well.
Will Baker (Missouri City, Texas / Ridge Point) had three of Trinity's 12 hits, going 3-for-5 with a stolen base and a run scored.
Sawyer Haynes (Waco, Texas / Midway) and
Callen Singhania (Dallas, Texas / Jesuit) finished with two hits each, with Haynes picking up one RBI and both players scoring a run.
John Ramsey (Austin, Texas / Westwood) went 1-for-3 with a three-run homer in the eighth.
Hellings enjoyed a quick first inning to start the game, but the Tiger offense failed to give him a lead despite putting a pair of runners on with just one out in the home half. Kean loaded the bases with nobody out in the second, which led to the first of two three-run innings in the game. The Cougars drew a walk and were hit twice, put down a sac bunt and a sac fly, and needed just one hit to take the 3-0 lead. Trinity wasn't able to answer until the bottom of the third when Baker led off with a single. After he stole second, Baker scored on a hit from
Will Dixon (Houston, Texas / Memorial) to break up the shutout. Haynes had a two-out single two batters later to make it a 3-2 game, but a lineout by
Mattias Rytting (Houston, Texas / Bellaire) ended the inning and left Kean in the lead.
Kean had baserunners in the fourth and fifth, but Hellings pitched his way out of each inning unscathed to give the offense a chance to turn the game around. Rytting singled to start off the bottom of the sixth, but the Tigers wound up stranding two runners in the inning and continued to trail. A leadoff single in the seventh chased Hellings from the game and Kean eventually produced another three-run inning to take a 6-2 lead heading into the final three at-bats for Trinity's offense. Haynes reached on an HBP to start the Tiger eighth and Singhania singled to center two batters later to put two on with just one out. Ramsey hammered his three-run bomb on a 1-0 count, and the Tigers were back in it, trailing 6-5. The rally stopped there, though, as Kean got the next two hitters out to keep the lead. Trinity got nothing going in the ninth and the Cougars drew first blood in the three-game series.
The two teams will continue the series with a Saturday afternoon matchup that is scheduled for a 2:00 p.m. start. The series finale is slated for the same time on Sunday afternoon.
