Kanan Treece (22) jogs to first base after drawing a walk during the Knights’ home loss to Reinhardt on Saturday afternoon.
Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange
Noah Sorrells (16) begins to throw a pitch. Sorrells gave the Knights seven innings of two-run ball during his start on Saturday.
Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange
Josh Zambito (24) looks at a pitch. Zambito had two RBIs during the first game of Sunday’s doubleheader.
Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange
LAURINBURG —The St. Andrews Knights baseball team lost all three games of a home series with the Reinhardt Eagles over Saturday and Sunday. St. Andrews falls to 5-5 (2-3 against conference opponents) on the season with the losses while the Eagles remain undefeated and improve to 14-0 (6-0 in conference games) with the three victories.
Saturday’s contest ended in a 2-1 final with Reinhardt getting their runs in the first and second innings while the Knights didn’t score until the bottom of the seventh. Isaiah Martin scored Aiden Wilson on an RBI single for the lone run of the game for St. Andrews.
Both starting pitchers went seven innings. Noah Sorrells gave the Knights three strikeouts over those seven innings while Andrew Herbert had nine strikeouts for Reinhardt.
Two games were then played on Sunday with the final scores being 9-5 and 5-3. The second game was seven innings.
The first contest saw the Knights score first with two runs in their half of the first on an RBI triple from Caden Santucci and an RBI groundout from Josh Zambito. The game was even at three entering the sixth inning, where Reinhardt blew the game open with six runs in their half of the inning. Cesar Morillo would get an RBI on a fielder’s choice in the bottom of the seventh while Josh Zambito added another RBI on a sac fly to give St. Andrew two more runs.
Josh Hill started five innings and was the pitcher of record for St. Andrews, striking out four batters during the game. Tate Dearing started the game for Reinhardt and got the win while striking out six batters. Logan Lynch earned the save with a clean ninth inning of work.
St. Andrews also scored the first two runs of the second contest, this time in the bottom of the third on an RBI singles from Morillo and Garrett Hamby. Reinhardt answered back with three runs in their half of the fifth and two more in the top of the sixth before a homer from Garrett Wolff in the bottom of the sixth gave the Knights a little bit of life, though they could never erase the deficit.
Tyler Barfield started the game for the Knights and took the loss even though he didn’t allow any runs during his 2.1 innings of work. Lynch was the pitcher of record for Reinhardt, pitching three innings of scoreless ball in relief with four strikeouts while Brett Allen earned the save by getting the last two outs of the contest on strikeouts.
The Knights will look to rebound on Tuesday afternoon when they host Carolina. First pitch is scheduled for 2 p.m.
Men’s wrestling finishes in eighth at conference tournament
The Knights competed at the AAC tournament on Friday and Saturday, finishing in eighth place out of 11 competing teams with 35 points scored. Life University won the competition with 210 points, 26 points ahead of second placed Southeastern University (who had 184).
Ayden Rader (133) led the Knights in points scored with 13.5 and finished in fourth of his weight class while David Coptsias (141) scored 11.5 points and came in sixth of his weight class. The remaining 10 points came from Franco Cuccurelo (157) who had 6.5 and Dakota Johnson (184) who had 3.5.
St. Andrews was victorious in 16 matches over the course of the competition. Eight wins came via a bye, one was by decision, five were fall wins and two were via technical fall.
The National Tournament will take place in Kansas on Thursday, March 6. It will be a three-day event.
Basketball teams end season with loss at Bluefield
The Lady Knights were defeated by the Rams in an 81-64 final on Saturday afternoon while the men’s team fell 86-81. The women’s team ends the season at 11-18 (7-15 in conference games) with the loss while the men finish 3-20 (2-18 against AAC opponents) with their 10th straight defeat.
The Lady Knights lost every quarter of their contest except the second frame, where both teams scored 16 points. Otherwise, Bluefield won the first period 22-16, the third quarter 18-16 and the final 10 minutes 25-16.
Londaisha Smith led St. Andrews in scoring with 19 points, grabbed six rebounds, dished out two assists and had two steals. Jamicia Davis added 18 points, grabbed a team high seven rebounds and dished out two assists.
The men were leading at halftime of their game 37-36 but couldn’t hold on over the course of the final 20 minutes. Bluefield outscored the Knights 50-44 in the second half.
Ma’Nas Drummond led the team in scoring with 25 points and in assists with five while also grabbing five rebounds and had four steals. Kwashek Breeden grabbed a team high 10 rebounds.
The AAC tournament for both the men and women will start on Wednesday and last through Saturday. Neither St. Andrews nor Bluefield qualified on either side.