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This past weekend, the Pitt State Baseball team traveled to Arkadelphia, Ark. for the Henderson State Invitational Tournament. They played Henderson State University on Friday, Feb. 11, Ouachita Baptist University on Saturday, Feb. 12, and then later in the day on Saturday against Southern Arkansas University. They played three hard fought games, but could not come out on top, going 0-3 on the weekend.
“There’s no way to sugarcoat it, we did not play good baseball this weekend, nothing good about it,” said sophomore outfielder Ryan Koval.
On game 1, the Henderson State Reddies came out strong, holding an 11-0 lead going into the fifth inning. The Gorillas put up a fight, scoring 1 run in the fifth, and then two more in the sixth, yet still allowed the Reddies two more runs. After being down by 10 runs, they game was ended after 7 innings.
“After we let Henderson State get up early, we really couldn’t get anything to work offensively, and overall it was not a complete game from the whole team,” Koval said.
On Saturday’s first game against the Tigers, things started off better for the Gorillas, taking a 2-0 lead after the first inning, and riding along into the third with a 5-3 lead. The Gorillas proceeded to score one more run in the third, but not before giving up 3 runs to the Tigers, taking the game 6-6 into the fourth. Pitt would then score 1 run in the fifth and two in the seventh, but the Tiger’s bold 4 run 8th inning would give them a 9-10 lead for the first time in the game. After the Gorillas weren’t able to make anything happen in the top of the ninth, the game was ended.
“This game felt better for us after getting a hot start of offense, but Ouachita got some timely hits and were able to mount a comeback,” Koval said.
After that loss, the Gorillas were ready to head into their last game with a better attitude. They showed promise having a 1-0 lead after 2 innings, but the Muleriders responded quick with back to back 3-run innings, holding a 6-1 lead. After nothing else much offensively, Pitt would then score two runs in the bottom of the eighth, but were not able to mount a full comeback in the ninth.
“Lots of things went wrong and were timely all weekend, but if we know we can play the way we can we for sure could of gone 3-0 opposed to 0-3,” Koval said.
After a devastating weekend, the Gorillas are ready to take on Wayne State University in a triple header, with a game on each Friday, Feb. 18th, Saturday, Feb. 19th, and then Sunday Feb. 20th. “There is no reason to go into this weekend without confidence, we are a great team and we are the same team as last year, we just need to get things clicking and start winning games,” Koval said.