PRFDT

Cats drop two of three in opening series

By: Tony Cimiglia Mineral County News-Tribune

The Potomac State College baseball team kicked off the 2005 campaign by dropping two of three games to Florence-Darlington Tech over the weekend in South Carolina .

The ninth-ranked Catamounts split a doubleheader on Saturday before losing the rubber match on Sunday.

PSC collected just 17 hits in the three-game set and committed eight errors, but received some strong mound work from the pitching staff.

"We got some young pitchers on the mound and a lot of them got their first college experience," said PSC head coach Doug Little.

But Florence-Darlington turned in the first tough pitching performance of the weekend, as William Miles hurled a complete-game four-hitter in a 3-0 victory.

Miles struck out three and walked two in seven innings of work for the win.

Brett McClain (0-1) got the start for Potomac State and went four innings, giving up one run, striking out two and walking one.

Mike Armstrong pitched two innings in relief, allowing two earned runs while striking out three and walking none.

Brett Lockhart led the Cats at the plate with a single and double in three plate appearances.

Potomac State turned the tables in Game 2, with Pat Adkins pitching five innings of scoreless baseball in the Cats' 4-2 victory.

Adkins struck out four and walked two to pick up his first victory of the young season.

Dale Kestner pitched two innings of middle relief, and Enrique Garcia came on in the seventh and struck out all three batters he faced to earn the save.

Lorin Noel and Lou Proietti each hit solo home runs forPotomacState, while Bill Wooten went 2-for-4 with two singles and an RBI.

Florence-Darlington won Game 3 on Sunday by a count of 6-3.

PSC starter Zack Thomas allowed three runs, struck out two and walked none in the loss.

Ryan Deatrick pitched two innings of relief and Joe Stupka closed out the game.

Eric Saffell led PSC with two singles and an RBI while Lockhart had an RBI single.

"It's good to be playing outside this early in the season," Little said. "We learned a lot of things this weekend. It's good for us to go down and play some good teams. It's much better than hitting in the gym."

PotomacState(1-2) will travel back down south this coming weekend for a three-game series with Young-Harris (Ga.). They will play a doubleheader on Saturday and a single game on Sunday.