Playing on the road for the second time this spring, the HBCU Baseball No. 1 Lane College baseball team recorded a 8-3 victory in the nightcap to split Friday’s doubleheader at Crowley Ridge College. The Pioneers (5-5) captured the opener 10-9 in seven innings.
Lane (1-2) scored two runs in the first, one in the third and two in the fifth inning of the second contest. They pushed across three insurance runs in the sixth inning to earn the split.
Senior LHP Treviz Brown collected three of Lane’s 9 hits in the victory. He scored three times and was one of two players to have multiple hit efforts. An RBI single from first baseman Christian Armstrong in the third inning plated two runs giving Lane an early 2-0 lead.
In the top of the third inning, Zach Elias homered to deep left-center, Armstrong hit a sacrifice fly to deep left-center in the fifth, Treviz Brown singled to score Adanskee Henry and Tavariz Brown tripled deep down the right-field line in the sixth.
That offense was enough for pitcher Treviz Brown, who struck out three batters in a complete game effort. Brown was bailed out by the Dragons defense as he walked seven batters, but he yielded two hits, three runs and one earned run for his first win of the season.
In the opener, Lane grabbed a 2-0 lead as Chris O’Neal doubled to right field to open the second inning. Tavariz Brown doubled to left-center scoring O’Neal and Zach Elias singled to third plating Brown to open the scoring.
In the top of the third, Thomas Arias singled up the middle, Christian Armstrong singled to left and Melvin Crayton singled past the shortstop scoring Arias. Lane would add another on Crowley’s Ridge third baseman Bobby Wright’s fielding error for a 5-0 lead. However, the Pioneers had an answer in the bottom half of the inning and plated two of their own runs cutting the deficit to 5-2.
Lane would add two runs in the fourth and one in both of the fifth and sixth innings. Crowley Ridge added a run in both the fourth and fifth putting Lane up 9-4 heading into the final frame.
Crowley Ridge took advantage of Lane’s three fielding miscues in the seventh by plating six runs including the walk-off single for a come from behind in game one for a 10-9 victory.
Lane committed five errors and left 12 base runners stranded throughout the game. Christian Armstrong was 3-for-5 at the plate. RHP starter Joel Ballard allowed three runs on two hits and three earned in 3.0 innings on the hill. Zach Elias, in 3.2 innings of relief, allowed eight hits and gave up seven runs to suffer the loss.