ODESSA, Texas – The Eastern New Mexico baseball team dropped its Lone Star Conference opener at UT-Permian Basin 22-5 on Friday afternoon.
The Falcons (10-16, 1-4 LSC) got up early against the Greyhounds (12-13, 0-1 LSC) as they scored nine unanswered runs to open the game to take a 9-0 lead after two innings of play.
In the third inning, the Greyhound bats were able to find some momentum. After an Alex Kuhn leadoff single, the Hounds scored their first run after Nicholas Ankerman, Paul Tapia, and Joel Paulino drew three consecutive walks to plate Kuhn to make it a 9-1 game. The Greyhounds added another two batters later on a Bryan Waltemath sacrifice fly to score Ankerman, closing the gap to two.
After Ryan Anderson was hit by a pitch to load the bases again, Malcolm Smith drove in two more on a single to center, narrowing the deficit to 9-4.
However, the Falcons responded by putting up an eight spot in the bottom of the frame to extend their lead to 17-4.
Waltemath tallied his second RBI of the game in the fifth on another sac fly scoring Paulino, but the Greyhounds couldn't muster enough offense to put together a rally.
UT-Permian Basin scored its 22 runs on 15 hits with no errors while Eastern recorded its five runs on seven hits and committed four errors.
Seven different Hounds recorded hits in the contest as Smith and Waltemath finished with two RBIs apiece while Paulino scored twice for his 15th and 16th runs of the season.
The Greyhound will continue to seek its first conference win tomorrow as Eastern will return to the field to play UT-Permian Basin in a doubleheader slated for a 1 p.m. start.
