It’s one win down, 21 to go for Panther baseball.
After months of preseason workouts, on Feb. 29 Franklin began their spring campaign, hosting Murphy in their season opener on McConnell Field. In a 3-1 win over the Bulldogs, Jared Greenwood’s team started off their year on the right foot.
Senior Abram Apel took the mound as Franklin’s opening day starter, drawing two strikeouts and a fly ball out for a 1-2-3 first inning.
Murphy’s pitcher failed to match Apel in the bottom of the inning, hitting Malachi Hayes with his first pitch and ceding a single to Ian Knepp. Hayes would come home on a Jaxon Hursey single, while Knepp scored on a Murphy error moments later. Apel then helped himself in Franklin’s third scoring play, bringing Hursey home with an RBI groundout to put his team up 3-0.
Murphy answered in the top of the second, drawing four straight two-out walks to cut Franklin’s lead to 3-1. With the bases still loaded, Apel stayed cool under pressure, striking out Murphy’s final batter to stop the bleeding.
The game turned into a defensive battle from there, with both teams holding each other scoreless for the next several frames. After a three-strikeout, 1-2-3 top of the fourth from Apel, Hayes took the mound in relief for the fifth, picking up where Apel left off. With three innings of one-hit, six-strikeout ball, the senior guided Franklin to a 3-1 win.
“It feels great. They beat us once last year, so it just feels good to start off that well,” said Knepp after the season-opening win. “Pitching was obviously ahead of our hitters, but we hit it well. … The key is just intensity – stay on the whole game, and don’t take a pitch off.”
In addition to Hayes, Apel also impressed on the mound, finishing with four innings of no-hit, nine-strikeout ball. Still in the month of February, Greenwood said defense-heavy games are par for the course this time of year.
“The pitching is still ahead of the hitting right now, and it’s still pretty tough conditions – it’s freaking cold out here,” said the skipper. “Pitchers just have to go out there and kind of get used to the hitter; [for] hitters, it’s a lot to process. And then, three of our basketball guys were back today [who] just got some swings in yesterday at the cages because of rain. But, I thought they did well, and we’ve got a lot to build off of right here.”
After their season-opening win over Murphy, the Panthers geared up for a home-and-away series with A.C. Reynolds, hosting the Rockets March 5 and traveling to Asheville March 7.