MORGANTOWN — A series of wild pitches to start and end the contest allowed Morgantown High to secure a 10-run, 14-4, victory over Preston as both teams kicked off their season March 19, at Mylan Park.
The Mohigans, under head coach Mark McCarty, jumped to an early 5-0 lead in the first inning following a trio of walks and a pair of hit batsman from Knights pitcher junior Corey Pyles. In relief, sophomore Elliot Curry closed the game on four walks and four wild pitches to help Morgantown score it’s final four runs and earn its first win of the year.
In total, Preston issued nine walks and nine wild pitches. Despite the loss, Preston skipper, Glen McNew, felt good about his young team’s effort.
“Surprisingly, to get beat 14-4, we played well,” McNew said. “We had the bases loaded twice and only scored two runs on that. We allowed just six hits and didn’t have a single error, but we couldn’t find the strike zone. Its early and were really young, I told them we just have to work harder on what we didn’t get done today.”
Preston was able to cut into the Mohigan lead early in the third, 7-4, off a Jacob Fields single and Ayden Bishop sacrifice fly, but a trio of MHS runs in the third and fourth, along with some struggles from the mound kept the Knights from closing the gap any further.
“It’s hard to tell what’s going on right now this early in the year and being this cold,” McCarty said. “Neither team swung the bat real well tonight and pitching wasn’t real strong, so it’s hard to gauge where we are right now, but it always feels good to get a win.”
Morgantown will travel to Buckhannon-Upshur at 4:30 p.m. March 20, while Preston will play host to University at 5 p.m. March 21.
