Baseball Drops High Scoring Affair With King

MARS HILL, N.C. – The Mars Hill baseball team dropped a 14-12 decision to the visiting King Tornado on Tuesday, March 01 at Henderson Field. The Tornado scored five times in the final two innings to send the Lions to its sixth loss of the season. MHU falls to 13-6 while KU improves to 6-7.

Brett Brubaker and Logan Conley each collected three hits apiece to pace the Lions offense. Conley and Evan Rogers tallied three RBIs each. Rogers also blasted his sixth homerun of the season and fourth in the past two games.

Ryan Whitt scored the first run of the game in King's first at-bat when he crossed the plate on a wild pitch. The Lions took a 2-1 lead in the bottom half of the inning when Dalton Eisenbath doubled to plate Ray Carolina and then Rogers doubled to plate Eisenbath. Carolina reached base leading the at-bat off with a triple to right-center field.

A two-run homerun by Mark Hencken gave the Tornado a 3-2 advantage in the third inning. Mars Hill then scored three runs on four hits in the bottom of the third frame to regain the lead (5-3). The inning was highlighted by a solo homerun from Rogers.

Hencken singled up the middle in the top of the fifth inning to drive in Nicolas Keister and Joe Ganger and tied the contest at 5-all. Dayton then singled to centerfield to plate Hencken and make the score 6-5 in favor of the visitors. Logan Conley belted a two-run homerun to left field in the bottom half of the fifth inning to give the Lions a 7-6 advantage. Hunter Merrill later scored on a fielder's choice to extend the Lions' lead to 8-6.

In the top of the seventh inning, Dayton singled to left field to score Hencken and then Whitt scored on a fielder's choice to knot the contest again at 8-8. Tyler Bailey hit safely through the left side to drive in Ryan Sattz and give the Tornado a 9-8 lead. In the bottom half of the inning, Phillip Carroll singled to center field to drive in Conley and tie the game 9-9. Jones singled to plate Hunter Merrill and the lead changed again with the Lions holding a 10-9 advantage. Rayshelon Carolina singled through the right side to score Carroll and make the score 11-9 in favor of the Lions. Rogers hit a sacrifice fly to center field to score Baker and give MHU a 12-9 lead heading into the eighth inning.

Hencken hit a double to left-center field to drive in Keister and trim the deficit to 12-10. Sattz then singled to right field to score Hencken and bring the Tornado within one run (12-11) of the Lions. Alec Bivens came in to pitch and King hit into a double play on his first toss to end the at-bat.

The Lions could not do anything offensively in the bottom of the eighth and KU capitalized in the top of nine, posting three runs with the big blow coming off of a homerun down the left-field line by Joe Ganger to give the Tornado a 14-12 advantage.

A two-out walk in the bottom of the ninth did nothing to harm the Tornado as Nathan Helke forced a popup to second to record the final out of the game, giving King the 14-12 victory.

The Lions will host Saginaw Valley on Thursday at Henderson Field. First pitch is set for 2 p.m.