LITTLE ROCK – Little Rock found itself trailing early once again and mounted another late inning rally, but once again came up short in a 13-8 loss to Creighton Saturday afternoon at Gary Hogan Field.
Little Rock's eight runs came on 10 hits Saturday, led by two-hit performances by both
Chase Coker and
Trace Jordan. Coker added a pair of runs scored with Jordan knocking in three runs for Little Rock, his most since joining the Trojans.
Riley Pittman added three RBI of his own, crushing a three-run home run to left field for his first round tripper of the season.
Garrett Scott also belted his first home run as a Trojan, knocking a solo shot to left in the eighth.
In his first start on the mound as a Trojan,
Jose Torres couldn't ask for a better opening inning, striking out the Bluejay side in the first. But Creighton jumped on him in the second, scoring three runs to take the early lead.
Little Rock answered back in the bottom of the second with a two-out RBI single from
Miguel Soto, bringing home
Ryan Benavidez. Jordan advanced to third on the hit after drawing a four-pitch walk, but a ground out ended the Trojan threat.
Creighton's bats came alive in both the fourth and fifth innings, putting nine runs on the board, highlighted by a grand slam in the fifth. Little Rock slowly started to chip away at the lead in the fourth, scoring a run off an RBI single from Jordan.
Trailing 12-2 in the fifth, the Trojans put up a five-spot on Creighton, beginning with Pittman's three-run blast to left to cut the lead to 12-5. Jordan then came up big for the second-straight inning, knocking a two RBI double to left center to bring Coker and Scott home and getting the Trojans to within five at 12-7.
That score would hold until the eighth when Creighton added an insurance run off a sacrifice fly. Scott answered back with his solo shot in the eighth, getting Little Rock back to within five at 13-8, but that was as close as the Trojans could muster to fall to 0-2 on the year.
Torres took the loss for Little Rock, giving up seven runs in 3.1 innings while striking out five. Little Rock's bullpen held serve over the final 4.2 innings as the combination of
Nick Perez,
Carter Brown,
McKinley Moore and
Ty Gordon limited the Bluejays to just one run on no hits with a combined four strikeouts.
Little Rock will now try and salvage the final game of the three game series Sunday afternoon as
Pablo Ortiz is scheduled to get the start for the Trojans. First pitch is scheduled for 1 p.m. at Gary Hogan Field.
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