Photo: Etown Athletics

The Elizabethtown College baseball team opened its season Saturday, Feb. 22 with a doubleheader against Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia. The first game began at 12p.m. and resulted in a 0-6 loss. It was followed directly by another game at 2:30 p.m. where the Blue Jays redeemed themselves with a 9-0 win.

For the Blue Jays, sophomore Tyler McGonigle tallied three hits, two RBI and two runs scored throughout the two games. Senior Riley McGinley also tallied two RBI, and senior Derek Manning and junior JT Thompson each scored a double. Junior Andrew Fisher scored three runs.

The start of the first game was rough for the Blue Jays. Roanoke scored all six of their runs in the second and third innings, leaving Etown to fight back hard in attempt to catch up for the remainder of the game.

Sophomore Evan Parks, Roanoke’s pitcher, allowed only four hits and registered seven strikeouts. Etown’s pitcher, first-year Nick Ortega, pitched five innings for his first college game and allowed zero runs, three hits and struck out two.

In the second game, the Blue Jays came back strong and scored five runs just before the end of the second inning. This was a large improvement from the first game considering they only managed four hits overall in the first game.

The Blue Jays added two more runs in the fourth, one in the fifth and one in the seventh, giving them the nine point lead.

Etown pitcher junior Joseph Sarich pitched six innings, allowing only five hits while delivering five strikeouts.

“I think we just got the nerves out of the way and were a lot more calm for the second game. We played a lot cleaner of a game, the hitters did a great job scoring early and giving Joe Sarich and the other pitchers a lead to pitch with,” Ortega said in an email interview after the game.

The team heads to Florida for their next game Sunday, March 1 against Wilkes University.