Pippa Passes, KY - The Grace Christian Baseball squad opened up it's spring season in Kentucky to do battle with the Eagles of Alice Lloyd College, who visited for four games this fall. The schedule was set for one game Wednesday night, two Thursday, and one more Friday before hitting the road back to Michigan.

Game One

Wednesday night saw a lopsided affair due to several errors in the field by Grace. Carter Willis and Reagan Mutschler led the offense with two hits each, but it wasn't enough as Alice Lloyd tallied 14 runs. Royce Frieburger set the stage however for better pitching and defense by firing a scoreless inning on the mound to end the game.

Game Two

Thursday morning got off to a hot start as Mutschler and Willis went back to back with homeruns in the first inning to give Grace a 2-0 lead. However, the Eagles got those runs right back with 4 of their own and held the lead for the remainder of the game. 3-7 would be the final, as the Tigers' offense stalled out later in the game. On th emound for Grace, Brendan Bos threw three scroeless frames with 3 strikeouts to keep the Tigers in it. 

Game Three

This game saw another hot start for the bats, as the Tigers leaped out to a 4 run lead in the second inning. Multiple players got in on the action this game including Jared Garnaat, Royce Frieburger, Reagan Mutschler, and Carter Willis, who all had RBI's. John Green started on the bump for Grace and was able to go four strong innings before handing over a tie game to the bullpen. An untimely error in the 5th inning led to three runs for Alice Lloyd, giving them a 7-4 victory.

Game Four

In what proved to be the grand finale of the series, game four was a high scoring game that had several lead changes. Jared Garnaat led the game off with a double and was driven in by Reagan Mutschler to give the Tigers the lead immediately. Mutschler also started the game on the mound, and went 3.2 innings before coming out with a 3-2 lead in the fourth. Grace's bullpen however couldn't put the Eagles away in the 4th, as they scored 6 runs with 2 outs to regain the lead. Grace clawed back with 5 runs in the 6th to bring the score to 8-9. Alice Lloyd scored one more in the bottom of the 6th to gain a two run lead at 10-8. Despite having the tying run on second base in the last inning, Grace couldn't bring him home, losing the game 8-10. 

"Our guys fought hard this weekend and played well overall," said Coach Wolfe afterwards. "We just gave Alice Lloyd too much in key situations in the games. We've improved much since the fall, we just have to play a complete 7 innings of baseball now to start seeing it translate to the win column."

Grace baseball will take a week off before travelling to Tennessee and Cincinnatti for their Spring Break trip March 3-9. Follow along as the Tigers continue year three!