Birmingham, Ala. -- The University of Lynchburg baseball team fell to East Texas Baptist 5-0 in the season opener on Friday afternoon.
Lynchburg rolled out Wesley Arrington to start the game, but Arrington, who earned the save in the final game of the national championship last season, was pitted against Sayers Collins from ETBU. Collins, one of the top pitchers in Division III, holds a 2.63 ERA in his career with a win-loss record of 28-6. Collins pitched seven, no-hit innings against the Hornets striking out seven on Friday. Benton Jones was the only baserunner for the Hornets in the game, drawing two walks. Jones earned the start at third base after playing a majority of his games at second as a freshman last season. Jones was third on the team last year with 36 walks. He led the squad with nine homers.
Arrington held his own against Collins, pitching 4 2/3 innings and striking out six Tigers. He caught the loss despite not allowing an earned run. ETBU took the lead in the fifth inning when Jacob Evangelista stole third and advanced home after Sean Pokorak's throw to Jones at third was off-target. Arrington ended up walking the batter that was at-bat during the go-ahead score for the Tigers, and Mason McDowell came in to relieve the graduate student afterwards.
McDowell was one of five relievers to pitch the rest of the game for the Hornets, and the bullpen allowed four more runs as the Tigers went on to earn their first-ever victory over the Hornets.
Lynchburg defeated ETBU twice in the national championship in Iowa last June. Brandon Pond and Arrington threw complete games against the Tigers to send Lynchburg to the championship series against Johns Hopkins.
As is typical for a 40-game regular season, the Hornets (0-1) don't have much time to dwell on the opening loss and will take on Birmingham-Southern at 6:30 p.m. (5:30 p.m. central) on Saturday, Feb. 17. The Panthers are hosting all three of Lynchburg's games in Alabama this weekend and are ranked 12th by d3baseball.com. Lynchburg is ranked sixth.
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--LYN--
