Ninth Inning Run Gives Eagles First Loss of the Season
| Final | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Reinhardt (GA)
|
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 10 | 1 |
|
LSU Shreveport
|
1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 13 | 2 |
Shreveport, LA - Reinhardt Baseball got its 2024 spring season underway on Thursday afternoon with a matchup between two NAIA Top 25 teams. The Eagles were coming in at #23 to start the season and their opponent, LSU-Shreveport, started the season at #5. The Pilots are hosting both Reinhardt and Tabor University in a round-robin style matchup to get the season going. The Eagles will play both Tabor and LSU-Shreveport twice over the three days.
In today's matchup with LSU-Shreveport, the Eagles played well but gave up a late-inning run that gave them the loss, 5-4. Newcomer, Eli Clotfelter, would get the start in game one of the season and did a great job holding the Pilots to just one run over five innings of work. He recorded 2 strikeouts but did have six hits against him. Junior, Hunter Paulsen came in for one inning of relief but ran into some trouble in the seventh where three runs were scored. The Eagles had a solid 3-1 lead at the time but ended the seventh down 4-3. Alex Galvez would come in to relieve Paulsen and pitched the final two innings for the Eagles. Galvez had two strikeouts as well, but he gave up 3 hits and one run, which ended the game 5-4 in favor of the Pilots. Reinhardt was able to tie the game at 4 all in the eighth inning.
Reinhardt (GA)Pitchers
| PITCHERS | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO | HR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ELI CLOTFELTER | 5.0 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| HUNTER PAULSEN | 1.1 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| ALEX GALVEZ | 2.0 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| Totals | 8.1 | 12 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 1 |
Offensively, the Eagles had a decent start to the season with Adrian Vargas and Lance Dockery leading the way going 3 for 5 and 2 for 4 respectively. Vargas scored a run and got a double in the game. Jacob Profit, Nash Crowell, Dylan Lewis, and Lance Dockery all had RBIs in the game.
Besides Vargas scoring, Profit, Jarrett Burney, and Will Underwood all scored in the game. Dockery had a great start of the season in 2023 where he led the team in hitting and he continued this a majority of the season. The Eagles will need Dockery to repeat this in 2024 if the team is going to make some noise in the AAC and make it back to the NAIA playoffs for the third straight year, however, Dockery has a lot of bats around him to help him out including All-American right fielder, Tucker Zdunich. Zdunich had a slow start to 2023 but poured it on the last three months of the season. Reinhardt has plenty of power throughout the lineup including both veteran and newcomers to the team.
In this game, the Eagles were able to score one run in each of the fifth through the eighth innings. One glaring stat was 13 runners left on base and those possible runs not scoring ended up costing them the game. This will be a stat that the Eagles can easily improve upon and they will be able to put the double-digit run totals as the season progresses.
Defensively, the Eagles only had one error in the game - which is a good stat that they need to keep going.
On Friday, Reinhardt will face Tabor University at 1 pm and then they will have the nightcap game at 7 pm with LSU-Shreveport again. All games can be seen on LSU-Shreveport''s Stretch Network. https://portal.stretchinternet.com/lsus/