Box Score 1 | Box Score 2

PORTLAND, Ore. – The Montana State University Billings Baseball team lost their two opening games of the Porter Park Classic.  In the first game MSUB lost 3-1 at the hands of Lewis-Clark State University Friday afternoon.  In game two, MSUB was defeated 3-1 as well by Concordia University-Portland. 

Game 1: MSUB 1 vs. LC-State 3

LC State's Cody Lavalli hit a 2-run homer to left in the bottom of the sixth to lead the Warriors to a 3-1.  It is only the second home run of the year in at Porter Park, which has a distance of 397-feet to left-center field.

The Yellowjackets continued their trend of scoring first as they got things going in the top of the fifth inning.  The leadoff batter, Brad Birch (0-3) was walked but then picked off at second during Blake Loran's (2-2) at bat.  Loran was also walked as was Drew Fosnes (0-3) who followed Loran.  Steven Deyoung (2-4) was next up and he hit a single up the middle to advance Loran to third and Fosnes to second to load the bases for Conner Holbrook. 

Holbrook was walked as well making it three out of four batters for MSUB that were walked to begin the inning.  With Holbrook being walked, that advanced all the base runners one base and pushed Loran across home to give Holbrook the RBI and giving MSUB the 1-0 advantage. 

The next two Yellowjacket batters struck out looking to end the inning.

Then came the bottom of the sixth where Lavalli hit the homer to give the Warriors the 2-1 lead.  LS-State would add one more run in the seventh inning to push the score to 3-1. 

The Yellowjackets still had a chance in the top of the ninth.  Birch was again the leadoff hitter, but struck out swinging.  Tanner Watson was next in line and was subsequently walked.  Two batter later, DeYoung hit another single and the tying run was now on base.  Holbrook again was walked and now the bases were loaded with two outs.  Bret Bitow (0-4) came to the plate and fought hard, but eventually went down swinging for the third and final out of the game as LS-State secured the 3-1 victory. 

Drew Christina (0-2) received the start on the mound and has his best performance of the season thus far, going 5.1 innings, allowing six hits but only two runs and struck out a game high (and season high for him) 10 batters.  Jake Mills came in relief of Christina for 2.2 innings and allowed two hits and one run while striking out two Warriors.

Game 2: MSUB 1 vs. Concordia-Portland 3

In a defensive battle where both teams struggled to produce much offensively, Concordia struck for three runs in the in the third inning while MSUB could only muster one run in the ninth. 

Matt Eames was the starting Jacket pitcher for game two, and went 5.2 innings allowing six hits and three runs while striking out just one cougar.  Joe Andriolo came in for relief and went 2.1 innings and only allowed one hit with no runs and one strike out. 

MSUB's lone run came off the bat of Brad Birch who hit a sacrifice single to the pitcher that in turn allowed Casey Merritt to score.  Brody Miller led MSUB with three hits on four at bats while Trevor Nix finished the game 2-4.  

"We pitched well today and had chances late to win both games," head coach Rob Bishop said.   "We have a lot of guys that are struggling at the plate so that is our main focus in the short term.  We will show up tomorrow to compete again."

The two losses drops MSUB to 1-9 so far on the year. 

MSUB next plays the University of British Columbia at 11:00 AM PT on Saturday Mar. 1st.  For stats and live video go to http://www.gocugo.com/