Trojans Fall to Fort Wayne in Home Opener

LITTLE ROCK — Mistakes plague the Trojans as they drop their home opener to Fort Wayne 2-3 at Gary Hogan Field Friday evening.
 
Starter Carter Brown had a solid outing on the mound throwing six innings and striking out six. He allowed two earned-runs off of two hits and gave up one home run in the fifth.
 
Justin Garcia kept his zero earned-run streak alive as he came in for relief in the eighth inning. He tallied on three more strikeouts putting his season total to 15 while facing seven batters and giving up one hit.
 
The leading batters on the night were catcher Kale Emshoff and second baseman Chase Coker. Emshoff went 2-for-3 with two singles and a walk while Coker also went 2-for-3 with two singles. The team batted 8-for-31 as a whole.
 
Fort Wayne (2-2) put a run on the board in the first inning after a couple wild pitches brought the runner home. It was enough for the Mastodons to hold a lead which they never game up.
 
The Trojans were held scoreless until the sixth inning when they began to show a little life. Riley Pittman singled to right with no outs followed by a Matt Merino double to the left-center wall scoring Pittman from first and brining the hot hitter Troy Alexander to the plate. Alexander would hit a towering fly to center that Merino would tag up to and try to take third. Merino beat the throw but slid through the bag due to the wet turf and was tagged out, squashing further damage done by the Trojans that inning.
 
After both teams scored a run each in the seventh, momentum felt like it had swung towards the Trojans brought on from Garcia's pitching in the eighth and top of the ninth. The bottom of the ninth began with an Emshoff walk. Head coach Chris Curry made the decision to bring Justin Cooper in to pinch-run and also Danny Mitchell Jr. in to pinch hit for Ryan Benavidez. Mitchell Jr. would strike out looking followed by Cooper getting a bad jump on the ball in the dirt and getting thrown out at second to end the momentum. Eldrige Figueroa would go down on swings to end the game for the Trojans.
 
The Trojans are set to play a doubleheader tomorrow against Fort Wayne with the beginning at 1 p.m., but that could change with storms looming in. Updates will be made on social media for those games.