Salamanca and Otto-Eldred baseball faced off in Salamanca on Friday for each team’s first game of the season.
After the team’s were deadlocked 4-4 through four and a half innings, Salamanca controlled the later portion of the game. They scored five runs in the last three innings to win 9-5.
“Super happy,” Salamanca coach Greg Herrick said. “I told the guys that even if we didn’t get the win, I was loving the way they were playing.”
The Warriors’ starting pitcher Cory Holleran pitched 4.2 innings and allowed four earned runs. Jake Herrick replaced him and finished the game with 3.1 innings pitched with an earned run.
Neither team was able to find much success at the plate in the first inning, but the Terrors took a 2-0 lead in the second.
Jaden Prince led off the second with a single, then Landon Francis got on base with a walk. Hunter App hit a one out triple that was misplayed by the center fielder and scored both runners to make it 2-0. Two Terror batters struck out to end the inning with App left on third base.
Salamanca answered with two runs of their own in the bottom half. Kruz Coustenis hit a single and later scored when Conner Seeley’s single brought him home. Seeley would score on a passed ball to tie the game.
Each team failed to score in the third inning, and Otto-Eldred went down in order to begin the fourth. “It always comes down to playing the pitching game,” Herrick said. “We had a pretty efficient inning on the mound in the fourth inning.”
Peyton Bradley hit a triple to lead off the bottom of the fourth for the Warriors.
Coustenis would bring him in with an RBI single to make it 3-2. Seeley was then hit by a pitch to make it first and second with no outs. Brendon Ghani layed down a bunt to move both runners over.
Nolan Seeley then grounded out to bring in Coustenis, and the fourth finished with Salamanca leading 4-2.
In the top of the fifth, Otto-Eldred pitcher Jared Obenrader came to the plate with runners on second and third with two outs. He hit a hard ground ball straight at the third baseman, resulting in a muffed ball which trickled into the outfield. Both runners scored to tie the game at 4-4.
Herrick started the bottom of the fifth with a single, and was brought home when Holleran followed him with another single after Herrick moved over to second.
Holleran was able to get to third base, and Bradley hit a sacrifice fly to bring him in and make it 6-4 going into the sixth inning. Herrick forced two Terror groundouts to begin the sixth, but App hit a single and Davey Schenfield hit an RBI double to make it 6-5.
Prince replaced Obenrader on the mound in the bottom half, and immediatley gave up a double from Conner Seeley. Walks and passed balls would score three runs in the sixth inning to bring the Warrior lead to 9-5.
“We are starting a true freshman at catcher,” Otto-Eldred coach Lance Baker said. “I thought he did a pretty decent job, some things we can work on, keeping the ball in front of us a little bit.”
Herrick then squashed any comeback attempt, putting the Terrors down in order to win the game.
Conner Seeley was 2-2 with an RBI, hitting a single and a double. Hunter App was 2-3 with two RBI’s and a triple.
“I’m never going to use the excuse that we only had four practices coming off of hoops,” Baker said. “There were some things that we were rusty on that we haven’t gone over yet, there were definitely some plays we should have made.”
Salamanca beat Ellicottville 15-6 on Saturday to move to 2-0.
“I think we are really good fundamentally defensively,” Herrick said. “It’s not going to look perfect all the time, but I think we got a really good starting point. I like the excitement, the energy, I think we are all in this year.”
