Brevard, NC - The Oberlin College baseball team concluded its season-opening three-game series at Brevard College, falling 4-1 to the Tornados in a tidy 2:08 on Sunday afternoon at Gil Coan Field.
Sophomore southpaw
Liam Rose was impressive in first-career start, tossing six innings and allowing three runs while scattering nine hits and a walk to to accompany his five punchouts. Rose threw 55 strikes on 80 pitches, recording six flyball outs and five ground ball outs along the way.
The Tornados posted a single tally in the home half of the second as Baylor Wyatt poked an RBI single into right field. Brevard would later use three hits and an error in the sixth to post a pair of runs to make it a 3-0 game.
Oberlin had an opportunity to get on the board in the top part of the sixth as
Brady Groves led off the inning with a single and moved up to second on a sacrifice bunt from
Zach Masnikoff but was thrown out trying to advance to third on the play. Two batters later,
Kyle Baxt singled through the right side which would have plated Groves for the Yeomen's first run.
Brevard freshman hurler Blake Altschuler kept the Yeomen hitters in check through 6.1 innings before running into some trouble in the seventh. Back-to-back singles from
David Curtin and
Sean Livingstone coupled with a Brevard error resulted in the first Oberlin to come across and chased Altschuler from the game. However, sophomore right-hander Andy Fahringer came on to short-circuit the Yeomen threat by inducing a pair of flyball outs to leave a pair stranded. He surrendered a two-out single to
Jay Aghanya in the eighth before shutting down Oberlin in order in the ninth to finish off the victory.
Brevard's final run would come in the bottom of the seventh off of freshman pitcher
Davis Hayes, who made his collegiate debut in his home state by giving up two hits and two walks in 1.1 innings while recording his first-career strikeout.
Brevard out-hit Oberlin 11-7 while both teams left seven men on base. Groves and Aghanya each had two hits in the loss. Groves, a first-year from Youngsville, North Carolina, looked real comfortable at the plate in his home state as well as he finished the series 6-for-11 (.545).
The loss drops the Yeomen to 1-2 on the young season while Brevard moved to 5-4.
They will be back in action next weekend with another three-game series set for Saturday and Sunday at Berea College (KY).
