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Tigers open with victory

FARMINGTON — The Elkins Tigers opened the varsity baseball season Thursday with a 4-2 victory over Big 10 Conference foe North Marion.

“We’ve been stressing defense and hammering away at it in the gym,” EHS coach Jack Crumm said. “We’ve only had three practices on the field. One of them, it was pretty wet, but we had to get on the field. It was cold and wet but we had to get out there. We only had one error today. The game was very well-played and so I was impressed with what we did defensively and pitching wise.

“I was worried about the timing of our bats, because we haven’t thrown pitchers to batters. You could tell, we were a little off. All in all for our first game, I was pleased,” he said.

“It was a tight game. We had to steal some bases and move some guys around and manufacture some runs, but defensively I thought the guys played very well.”

Adam Riggleman earned the victory for the Tigers on the mound. He went 3 innings, striking out 5 batters and giving up 2 hits.

Matthew Gainer pitched 2.1 innings, giving up 3 hits, a walk and a run, while striking out 2 batters.

Jesse Williams closed out the game, giving up 1 run on 3 hits in 1.2 innings of work. He also racked up 3 strikeouts.

Elias Gordon took the loss for the Huskies, giving up 3 runs on 5 hits in 5 innings pitched. He also struck out 4 batters and walked 1.

Joseph Schmidlen finished the day 2 for 4 with a double and a run scored for the Tigers. Matt Wilson went 1 for 2 with a solo home run and a walk. Blake Loftis went 2 for 3 with a double and a run scored, while Luke Petrice went 1 for 3 with an RBI.

Loftis led off the third inning with a double. Thomas Talkington entered the game as a pinch runner. He moved to second on a sacrifice bunt by Will Crumm and later advanced to third on a stolen base. A wild throw to third allowed Talkington to cross the plate and gave Elkins a 1-0 advantage.

In the fifth inning, Loftis led off with a double and eventually advanced to third when Chris Swecker lined out. Next up, Schmidlen hit the ball directly to the second baseman; however, a throwing error allowed him to reach first and score Loftis. Petrice then blasted a double to score Schmidlen and give EHS a 3-0 advantage.

Wilson crushed a solo home run in the sixth inning to put Elkins up 4-0. North Marion collected runs in the bottom of the sixth and seventh innings but couldn’t come back from the deficit.

Elkins (1-0) is scheduled to host Braxton County today. The varsity game is scheduled for 4 p.m. and a junior varsity contest will follow.

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