DAVENPORT, Fla. — Junior Andrew Garrett continued his torrid hitting for the Knox College baseball team on Friday afternoon, smacking a double and driving in three runs, but Hamilton College rallied in the middle innings to squeak past the Prairie Fire at Northeast Regional Park, 7-6. The Continentals rapped out 17 hits to improve to 6-2 on the season, while Knox fell to 6-4.
The Prairie Fire trailed by a 2-0 score when they came to bat in the second, and Garrett capped a three-run outburst with a double that drove in two. Then in the fourth, first-year Clayton Rice and sophomore Nicholas Nitti each provided an RBI to give Knox a 5-2 lead.
Hamilton clapped back at Knox in the fifth on an RBI triple off the bat of Gary Kopp and a Michael Tallarida single that plated Kopp, slashing the deficit down to one.
A one-out walk in the top of the sixth proved to be problematic as Ethan Righter followed with his second home run of the season that allowed the Continentals to reclaim the lead. Kopp and Tallarida then stroked back-to-back doubles for what turned out to be a key insurance run.
Some hustling on the base paths led to the Prairie Fire's sixth run. Sophomore Aidan McMurtrie led off the eighth with a single and not only moved to second on a sacrifice bunt to third by junior Luke Mathieu, but he realized no defender was at third on the play and took the extra base. Garrett brought him home with a sacrifice fly to center, making it a one-run game.
Knox threatened in the ninth against Righter, who came into pitch from his spot at third base. He immediately walked the first batter he faced, and sophomore Tyler Thiem came in as a pinch runner, swiping second before taking third on a sacrifice bunt. With the tying run on third with just one out, Righter struck out the next two batters to end the threat and the game for his first save.
Colin McMahan (1-0) earned the win with 4.1 quality innings of relief, yielding just one run on one hit and one walk while striking out four. Chester Boynton led Hamilton with four hits while both Righter and Kopp had three knocks.
Suffering the loss was junior reliever Brady Bertrand (0-1) who was touched for five runs in 1.1 stanzas on the mound. Nitti and McMurtrie each had a pair of hits, but the rest of the team combined for only two more.
Knox will be in action again tomorrow at Northeast Regional Park when the Fire take on Fredonia State (6-3) bright and early at 9 a.m. (EDT). Fans who would like to watch online can purchase a subscription to BeTheBeast.com; links are provided for each game in Florida on the Knox baseball schedule at PrairieFire.Knox.edu, the official website of Knox Athletics.
