By Gavin Greer
Purdue Fort Wayne’s baseball team had their season opening series this weekend in Alabama against Alabama State. The two teams played four times from Friday to Sunday. Friday had one game, Saturday had two games and finally Sunday had one last game.
In Friday’s series opening game PFW lost their first game of the season 0-13. The Mastodons could not get anything going at the plate as they totaled only three hits as a team.
PFW’s pitching started off poor as JD Deany allowed 8 earned runs in 1.2 innings. Bryce Marten had the best pitching performance out of the four PFW pitchers who threw in this game. Martens pitched 3.0 innings and only allowed one earned run.
The first game of Saturday went way better for the Mastodons as they earned their only win of the weekend in a 4-3 victory over Alabama State. PFW again only had three hits as a team in this game, but these hits led to runs.
PFW pitcher Jacob Myer started the game strong as he struck out seven batters in 4.2 innings. Justin Miller earned a save by not allowing a run in the final inning.
The second game of Saturday did not go well for PFW as they lost 4-18. Rex Stills started the game off badly by allowing six runs in 3.1 innings. Enas Hayden helped Alabama State grow their lead by allowing five runs in a single inning.
Jarrett Bickel was PFWs best performer as he reached base three times, once from a hit and twice off walks. Through this he was able to score two runs.
On Sunday the final game of the series was played. This was a closer contest as PFW fell short losing 11-13. Grant Thoroman was the Mastodons top performer in this game as he batted 3/5 and totaled five RBIs.
PFW will next time out will come on Friday at 7 p.m., this will be the first game of a four-game series against Bethune-Cookman.
PFW will look to play better next week and improve their 1-3 record.
PFW will need to perform better at pitching going forward in the season. In their three losses against Alabama State, they allowed at least 13 runs in each game. It is hard to win when you cannot rely on your pitchers to keep a lead for you.