EDMOND, Okla. – The East Central University baseball team traveled to Edmond on Saturday to take on the Pittsburg State Gorillas in the season opener and first of three games at the UCO First Pitch Classic Tournament at Wendell Simmons Field.
 
Pitt State slowly built a five-run lead over the first four innings before ECU responded in the bottom of the fourth. Back-to-back hits—a double from Ryan Strickland followed by an RBI single from Ethan Rone—put the Tigers on the board and cut the deficit to four. The Gorillas extended their lead with three more runs in the sixth, but Rone struck again in the seventh, launching a solo home run to trim the lead.
 
Tate Rico entered in relief in the seventh and shut down Pitt State's offense, allowing just one hit over three scoreless innings. However, the Tigers struggled to generate further offense, ultimately falling to the Gorillas 8-2.
 
Three players accounted for all six of ECU's hits:
 
Ethan Rone went 2-for-4, hitting the first homerun of the year for the Tigers, collecting two RBI's and scoring a run.
 
Weldon Sherrell was perfect at the plate, going 3-for-3, with a walk and a stolen base.
 
Ryan Strickland had the Tigers first extra base hit of the year going 1-for-3 with a double, a walk, and one run scored.  
 
ECU struggled with runners in scoring position, converting just one of four opportunities.
 
Joel Hogan made the first start of the year for the Tigers, going three innings while striking out three. Luke Livian was the first out of the pen, also going three innings and striking out five. Tate Rico pitched the last three innings, allowing just one hit in his scoreless outing.
 
Both teams played clean defense, with no errors committed in the game. Pitt State capitalized on timely walks and mistake pitches, leading to home runs with traffic on the base paths to give them the offensive boost over ECU.
 
The Tigers will take the night to reset and come back out tomorrow, Sunday, Feb. 2nd to take on Emporia State at 3:30pm.