NEW ORLEANS – WKU Baseball dropped a tightly contested matchup, 6-5, in its series-opener against (RV) Tulane Friday night at Turchin Stadium.
With both teams trading runs throughout the game, a solo shot by the Green Wave in the eighth inning ended up being the difference.
"I thought it was a very good college baseball game," said head coach John Pawlowski. "Both teams are very talented, they just made a couple more plays than we did. I thought, defensively, we had a couple miscues that hurt us a little bit. But, overall I liked the way we competed. Unfortunately, we didn't end up on the winning side tonight, so we'll have to regroup and get ourselves ready to go again tomorrow."
Jake Kates earned his second start of the season in the contest, allowing just one earned run while striking out a pair over 5.0 innings of action. Mason Vinyard entered in the sixth inning to relieve Kates, allowing two earned runs while striking out one batter in 3.0 frames.
At the plate, WKU recorded seven hits on the night. Matt Phipps and Kevin Lambert both produced multi-hit efforts in the contest, with Phipps going 2-for-3 with two RBI and one run, while Lambert went 2-for-4 with an RBI and run.
SCORING SUMMARY
Tulane opened the scoring in the first frame, with an RBI-groundout making it 1-0.
WKU answered back in the top of the second, as Lambert sent an RBI-single to right field to even the score.
The Hilltoppers captured their first lead of the game in the third, with an RBI-single by Davis Sims and sac fly by Phipps putting the game at 3-1.
The Green Wave added one run in the bottom of the third on a fielding error, making it 3-2.
WKU added another run in the fourth frame, with Jack Wilson using a sac fly to score Lambert.
Tulane again answered in the bottom of the inning, using a sac fly of its own to make it 4-3 in favor of WKU.
The back-and-forth continued in the top of the fifth, with Phipps sending an RBI-single through the right side to put the score at 5-3.
The Green Wave would go on to score three unanswered runs from there, with a solo shot over the left field wall in the eighth inning giving them the 6-5 lead and eventual win.
UP NEXT
The Hilltoppers will play game two against Tulane at 2 p.m. CT on Saturday, March 6 at Turchin Stadium.
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