Baseball wraps up second weekend of scrimmages

Photo by: Dave Winder-Murray State Athletics

9/28/2020 12:54:00 PM | Baseball

The Murray State Baseball team had their second weekend of intrasquad scrimmages at Johnny Reagan Field in Murray, Kentucky.

The team split into the "Old Dudes" versus the "Young Guns". The Old Dudes won both games 7-4 and 15-8.

Now two weeks into fall practice and more than 30 innings of scrimmage time, head coach Dan Skirka likes what he is seeing out of his team.

"This weekend marked our fifth intrasquad scrimmage and you can tell we're knocking the rust off some," Skirka said. "But compared to the first weekend, you can see our hitters' timing is better and our pitchers were around the strike zone more. Most of our guys haven't played since we got shut down in March."

Skirka is also pleased with the leadership he's seeing from the older players.

"Some of these guys have been here four and five years now and three of those years with me," he said. "Day to day, they know how we should go about our business. Now, they're Jake Slunder

bringing the young guys with them, which is awesome to see."

Game 1 – Old Dudes 7, Young Guns 4
The Old Dudes opened the scoring in the bottom of the second inning. Jordan Cozart reached on an error and advanced to third on two wild pitches. Tanner Booth knocked a single to short center field to score two.

In the top of the fourth, the Young Guns got on the board with two runs. Two walks and a hit-by-pitch loaded the bases, then Alex Crump drove in two.

Brennan McCullough and Jake Pennington scored to tie the game for the Young Guns in the sixth.

Jake Slunder started the seventh with a lead-off single to center. Bryson Bloomer and Ryan Perkins both walked to load the bases. Slunder scored on a 6-4 fielder's choice. Anderson hit a deep fly to right field, scoring Bloomer. Cozart, who reached on the fielder's choice, scored on a wild pitch to increase the Old Dudes lead to 7-4

The Young Guns pitching staff saw Ryan Fender begin the game, going two innings, allowing one hit and one earned run while striking out three. Adam Weihe took the next two innings, striking out two, giving up one run on one hit. Malik Pogue went two and a third innings allowing two earned runs on two hits and one strikeout. Jordan Naranjo struck out four in his two and two-thirds innings to finish the game.

For the Old Dudes, Shane Burns struck out three in three innings with only one hit, while Alec Whaley struck out two in two innings of work and Connor Holden pitched two hitless frames, striking out four to close out the game.

Game 2 – Old Dudes 15, Young Guns 8
The Old Dudes jumped ahead with four runs in the top of the first on a two-run double by Cozart and a two-run homer run from Brock Anderson. In the second, the Old Dudes continued to score runs, capped off with a grand slam by Perkins to lead 10-0.

A sac fly by Jake Pennington got the Young Guns got on the board in the bottom of the third.

Jonah Brannon homered for the Old Dudes to lead 11-1 in the fourth inning.

The Young Guns' bats came alive in the sixth inning, plating six runs to cut the lead in half, trailing 15-7.

The Old Dudes wrapped up game two, 15-8, to sweep the series over the Young Guns.