It was a rough start to the season for the Noxapater baseball team. The Tigers lost a pair of games on Saturday, falling 6-5 to Leake County and 3-1 to Philadelphia.
The Noxapater baseball team is scheduled to take on Sebastopol on Tuesday and travel to Eupora on Thursday. They will play at Scott Central on Saturday in a 1 p.m. contest.
Leake County scored four runs in the fourth inning to come from behind and beat the Tigers in a time-limit contest 6-5.
Noxapater scored one run in the first and two in the second and third innings.
The Tigers had just one hits by Landon Bailey and took advantage of seven walks by Leake County. Hunter Johnson walked twice and scored twice while Zach Kimbrel also walked twice. Ty Duran, Cardale Eichelburger and Kimbrel also scored runs.
Landon Bailey got the start for Noxapater and pitched 3 2/3 innings, giving up five runs on two hits while striking out 11 and walking one. Dalton Keen faced three batters and walked all three while Lane Bailey came in the get the last out.
The Tigers dropped a two-run decision to Philadelphia 3-1 in the season opener on Saturday.
Noxapater scored their run in the bottom of the fist when Ty Duran singled, stole second, advanced to third on a groundout and scored on a passed ball. Philly scored two in the third and one in the fourth for their runs.
“We are young and don’t have a lot of varsity experience,” Noxapater coach Mike Gregory said. “Hopefully it will be a building block for the rest of the season. We pounded the strike zone. We threw a lot of strikes. Our numbers are right where they want to be as far as ball-to-strike ratio.”
Noxapater had four hits in the contest as Hunter Johnson led the way with a double. Zach Kimbrel and Nick Stone also had singles.
Stone got the start and pitched 4 innings, giving up three runs on four hits. Duran pitched the final two innings, giving up one hit and one walk.
