Baseball Loses Double-Header at King
Mars Hill’s baseball team lost a double-header at King Sunday afternoon.
BRISTOL, Tenn. – Mars Hill's baseball team lost a double-header at King Sunday afternoon. The Lions lost the first game 1-0 and then dropped the nightcap, 11-4. The Lions fell to 1-8 on the season while the Tornados improved to 7-2 on the year.
Game 1: King 1, MHU 0
The first contest was true pitching duel. King's Octavio Mirabal threw a no-hitter while the Lions' Zac Brown had a one-hit performance. King scored the only run in the contest in the second inning when Ashton King crossed the plate on a Lion fielding error. Mirabal (3-0) struck out seven batters while Brown (0-1) struck out five.
Game 2: King 11, MHU 4
Daniel Vitello and Matt Honeycutt led the Lions offensively in game two. Both players recorded two hits and a homerun. Vitello added a pair of RBI and a stolen base. Alan Kolb suffered the loss (1-2) on the mound pitching one inning in relief.
Tony Valdes led King at the plate going 2-4 with a homerun and two RBI. Trader Flora and Tyler Bailey also tallied two hits and added an RBI apiece. Grant Boyd obtained the win throwing 4.2 innings in relief.
A solo homerun by Honeycutt in the Lions' first at-bat put the first run on the board. Valdes tied the game in the bottom half of the first inning on a Lion error. After Cody Cline tripled to lead off the second inning he later scored on a wild pitch to give the Lions a 2-1 lead. Vitello then hit a two-run homerun to extend the advantage to 4-1. King answered scoring three runs of their own in the bottom half of the inning on four hits highlighted by a two-run homerun from Valdes.
King scored what would later prove to be the game winning runs in the sixth inning when they took a 6-4 lead off of two hits and one Lion error. The Tornados added four insurance runs in the sixth frame on three hits highlighted by RBI doubles from Kevin Barbato and Bubba Ruiz. King ended the scoring in the eighth inning when River Laskey scored on a Lion error.
Mars Hill will host Montreat on Monday, February 19. First pitch at Henderson Field is set for 2 p.m.
