Knights baseball wins first of three games at CIU

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The St. Andrews Knights baseball team defeated the CIU Rams 7-4 in Thursday’s game one of a three-game series at Miller Field this week.

After a scoreless first inning by both teams, St. Andrews (17-11, 6-8 Appalachian Athletic Conference) led 2-1 after the second and added another run in the third; CIU (10-23, 5-11 AAC) answered with three runs in the sixth to take a 4-3 lead, but St. Andrews had two-run seventh and ninth frames to come back on top and prevail.

Adrian Ojea scored three runs for St. Andrews; Garrett Wolff had two runs and one hit; Cesar Morillo had a two-run homer in the second and finished with four RBIs; Garrett Hamby had a run; Samuel Rosario had two hits with one RBI and Bryson Bebber and Kade Poteet-Herrera had one hit and one RBI each. Ryan Cleary (2-1) allowed two hits with four strikeouts across 3 2/3 scoreless innings to earn the win.

CIU’s James Lovera, Colton Lopez and Collin Greer had one run and hit each, with Greer also recording an RBI; Kai Smith scored one run with one RBI and Jennings Greene and Scott McDonough had two hits with one RBI.

Darius Hatchette-Dunn (0-1) allowed four runs and four hits with one strikeout and three walks in 2 1/3 innings to take the loss.

St. Andrews and CIU play the last games of their series on Saturday; game two begins at 2 p.m. and game three will follow.