By FHSU SPORTS INFORMATION
The Fort Hays State baseball team fell to Newman in their second meeting of the season 18-6 on Tuesday (March 29). Newman scored the majority of its runs over the last four innings, while the Tigers scored five of their runs in the final half-inning.
After Sammy Sanchez worked around a leadoff single with a pair of strikeouts, Jenner Kehe led off the bottom of the first with a single to right. The redshirt-freshman then stole second and later scored on an RBI fielder’s choice off the bat of Ed Scott.
Padraic Walsh took over for Sanchez in the second and allowed a pair of solo home runs before getting out of a jam with a 4-6-3 double play. The Jets pushed across two more runs in the fourth, Walsh’s final inning of work. The senior took the loss, his first decision of the season, after allowing four runs on six hits and three walks over 3.0 innings of relief. He matched Sanchez with a team-best two strikeouts on the day.
After Cade Flaherty tossed a scoreless fifth, the Jets added two runs in the sixth, seventh and eighth innings before tacking on eight more in the ninth, including six with two outs.
The Tigers put together a big inning of their own in the home half, but it was too little, too late for the home team. Mikey Felton led off with a double before coming in to score on a single from Trip Pennington. Another base hit from Traelon Yarbrough added another run before Joey Olson worked a bases-loaded walk to keep the inning going. Brady Kreutzer followed with a two-RBI single to right, plating Jaxson Webb and Yarbrough, before the Jets ended the contest with a groundout. Fort Hays State will be back on the road this weekend (April 1-3) when the Tigers travel to Joplin, Mo. to take on Missouri Southern for a three game series. First pitch on Friday is set for 5 p.m. before a 1 p.m. first pitch both Saturday and Sunday.