Bat Cats Win Series Opener at UPIKE
PIKEVILLE, Ky. – The Bethel Wildcat baseball squad hit the road for the first time on the young season this weekend traveling to the Mountains of Eastern Kentucky to face the UPIKE Bears.
Bethel won the series opener of their three-game set, winning 3-1 over the Bears Friday afternoon.
The Cats pushed across two runs in the sixth to take a 2-0 lead. Ivan Vega and Logan Beecham had RBI's in the inning. Kendrick Osborne drove in a run in the eight to Bethel up 3-0. The Bears scored their lone run in the bottom of the eighth.
Bethel had 11 hits in the game. Beecham and Osborne had two hits each. Luis Aristud led the Cat attack with three hits.
Marco Santa scattered eight hits and moved his record to 3-0 on the year.
The Wildcats moved to 4-6 and 2-2 in the MSC. Pikeville fell to 8-14 and 1-3.
Coach Rusty Thompson was pleased to win the series opener. "It was great to win the first game of the series, especially on the road. Pikeville is a very competitive team, and we are happy to get that first one under our belt. We made some mistakes, but we didn't compound them and let those beat us. Offensively we hit a lot of balls hard and they made some good plays but we got two runs and manufactured an insurance run late in the game."
Thompson added, "Marco Santa did another great job today throwing his 3rd complete game of the young season. When he's on the mound he's just one tough Hombre and I'm very happy for him and our entire team. We hope to build on this and be ready to compete tomorrow in the DH."
The squads will face off in a doubleheader Saturday at 1 p.m. CST.
Live stats:
https://naiastats.prestosports.com/sports/bsb/2021-22/boxscores/20220305_evlb.xml
Live video:
https://upikebears.com/sports/2020/10/14/upike-sports-network.aspx