Last Friday, the baseball team played a non-conference doubleheader against the Fairfield Stags. That afternoon set was followed by a single game on Saturday. Playing at home, it was the Lancers’ second, third and fourth games of the season following a win against James Madison.
Both games on Friday proved to be Stag wins, with the first game being 4-0 and the second 6-1 in favor of the visitors. The only run scored by the Lancers was thanks to freshman Travis Burnette of Lynchburg, who was also responsible for three hits. Mound losses were taken by sophomore Brandon Vick of Newport News and freshman Joe Manion of Midlothian.
In the opener, the fourth inning saw Fairfield score two runs and the eighth inning saw them follow up with two more for the victory. The nightcap saw Fairfield score four runs in the first inning, one run during the second and another run in the fifth.
After the game, assistant coach Brian McCullough had a few words to say about the day’s games. When asked about his season’s expectations, McCullough said, “We expect to hit the ball and be able to score runs in bunches; the top end of our pitching staff is pretty seasoned so we should be alright there. We’re looking to come out and play hard every game. I think our guys are really excited about the season and we’re looking forward to playing some good baseball.”
When asked to give his overall impression of the double header, McCullough said, “In the first game, we swung the bat alright. They made a couple decent plays in the field. I feel like what hurt us the most was our defense. We did make a couple plays behind our pitchers; we threw the ball fairly well. Corey Ramsey threw a great game, so did Brandon Vick and Dylan Caruso. Those three guys did their job, we just couldn’t get any runs across the board early on. A couple guys were in position and we had too many fly-offs, to be honest with you.”
McCullough remarked, looking forward, that “Every Big South series is going to be big. We’re looking to win 2 out of 3 [every series]. Every weekend, [we need to] just put in a good product on the field. We’re really going to have to step up and play good baseball.”
Finishing up his statements, McCullough said, “Ramsey stepped in and gave us a chance to win the game. We just couldn’t get anything going offensively. So hats off to him for stepping up as a junior and really putting the team on his back.”
On Saturday, Longwood jumped out to an early lead and won a convincing 12-4 victory. Last night, LU moved to 3-2 on the young season with a 4-1 victory over Western Carolina of the Southern Conference. They play a second game against the Catamounts today at 4 p.m.
