Eastern New Mexico Baseball | 03.04.16 | David Norton | Photo By Claude Vigil
PORTALES, N.M. — The Eastern New Mexico baseball team had a tough outing Friday, as they were handed a 13-3 loss to Angelo State in their Lone Star Conference season opener.
Zach Shank was stuck with his first loss of the season, being named the Greyhound's (7-8, 0-1 LSC) starter for the first time this season. Shank pitch two and two-third innings, allowing six earned runs off five hits. Shank was relieved by Jerrott Gray who also had a rough outing, pitch 3 and one-third innings while allowing four runs off six hits.
Eastern would go through three more pitchers, giving up two more runs in the in the final inning. The Rams (7-7, 1-0 LSC) only had three more hits than the Greyhounds (13), but with ENMU giving up eight walks on the night those hits led to 13 runs.
"Our biggest issue when you get passed some of the positives, is we are having trouble starting games," said head coach David Gomez. "We get down by too much and then we start pressing to get back into it. If we could keep the score manageable to open up the game, I feel our offense is good enough to win games."
Mike McNicholl and Justin Paul led the Hounds from the plate, with each player recording two hits while Paul had two RBIs and McNicholl scored two runs. Tregra Williams also recorded two hits, driving in one run in the process.
Gomez said, "I thought offensively we had a plan going into the game and we executed it, we just had a few unfortunate errors. Good on ASU making plays, but if we get just a few more through their defense it's a different game."
The Hounds will return to the diamond Saturday, with the first game of the doubleheader scheduled for 1 p.m. (MT). They will finish the series Sunday, with the first pitch scheduled for 1 p.m. (MT) as well.
