WICHITA, Kan. – On a brisk Friday afternoon at McCarthy Field the Newman baseball team played its series opening doubleheader against Heartland Conference foe Arkansas-Fort Smith, with both teams coming away with hard fought wins.
The starting pitcher for Game 1 of the doubleheader was
Joe Cannady, who gave the Jets (13-16, 3-5 Heartland) six solid innings, including three strikeouts. Newman would have a chance to score early in Game 1 in the bottom of the first inning with
Channing Williams at second base with one out, but ended up being left stranded to end the inning.
Neither team could get anything going in the second inning, but
Ked Bailey singled through the right side to get on base to start the bottom of the third. Bailey made it over to second with one out but could not get any further as the inning would draw to a close with the score still at 0-0.
Newman got on the scoreboard first in the bottom of the sixth inning to make the score 1-0.
Nick Griffin was hit by a pitch to start the inning and two at-bats later a deep double from
Daniel Jahnke would push Griffin across home plate to score the first run of the day for either team.
The Jets would take their 1-0 lead into the top of the seventh, but UAFS rallied and scored two runs to take a 2-1 lead and held onto the lead in the final frame to win Game 1.
Newman struck first in Game 2 in the bottom of the first inning off a
Brian Canfield sacrifice fly that scored
Jacob Hamerle from third to put the score at 1-0 after one complete inning. UAFS responded with one run in the second, third and fourth innings to go up 3-1, heading into the bottom of the fourth.
The Jets cut into the Lion lead by scoring one run in the bottom of the fourth, which made the score 3-2. UAFS answered back with another run in the top of the fifth to go back up by two runs at 4-2.
Newman responded once again in the bottom of the fifth with two runs to even up the score at 4-4. Griffin singled up the middle to get the first Jet runner of the inning across, while Jahnke punched in the tying run with a single to left field that got Williams home to make the score 4-4 after five complete innings.
The Jets broke the tie with the Lions in the bottom of the seventh to go up 5-4. Griffin walked with one out and the following at-bat
Aaron Mack delivered a deep double to right field, which resulted in a fielding error from a UAFS fielder that got Griffin across the plate for the go-ahead run.
Newman shut down the Lions in the eighth and ninth innings to win Game 2 of the doubleheader 5-4, with
Matt Riney getting the save and
Trey Tucker earning his first victory of the season.
Jahnke went 5-of-6 from the plate today, including two RBIs, two runs and one double to lead the way for the Jets.
Newman has a quick turnaround Saturday morning, starting its series finale at 11 a.m. at McCarthy Field.
