EAST GREENSBORO – North Carolina A&T dropped an Opening Day baseball game to the Dayton Flyers, 8-4, inside historic World War Memorial Stadium on Friday evening.
"First of all, it was just great to have Opening Day," said A&T coach Ben Hall. "It was a beautiful day in the ballpark, and some good energy and (Dayton) is a good ball club. It was a really good baseball game."
Junior left-hander Daniel Carter got the nod on the mound for A&T (0-1) and looked impressive early, striking out five batters through the first three innings. Carter walked the lead-off batter in the fourth before striking out Marcos Pujols.
With a runner on first, the Flyers (1-0) put together four-straight hits and drew first blood off a two-run single from senior Jay Curtis. Graduate Alexis Castillo followed with another base hit to score junior Alex Neff before junior Keagan Calero walked to load the bases. Carter hit the next batter, giving up a run and allowing all runners to advance 90 feet as Dayton took a 5-0 lead.
Junior Jose Martinez then stepped in with one out. The righty slapped a ground ball to Aggie third baseman Cort Maynard, who, instead of going to second for the potential double play, fired it home to freshman catcher Canyon Brown. Brown tagged the plate for the first out and rifled it down the line to first base, but the runner was called safe in a bang-bang play.
With two outs and the bases still loaded, Pujols knocked in two more runs with a single to put the Flyers ahead 7-0.
Freshman righty Jaheim Brown would relieve Carter on the mound and get out of the inning, but not before a final run made it 8-0.
"We had the one inning get away from us," said Hall. "We didn't do anything poorly. But, you can tell, they are a good hitting team, and they run off of momentum, and they sensed it and got almost all their knocks in that one inning."
However, the Aggies did not quit and responded with a pair of runs in their fourth courtesy of a two-run home run to right-center from graduate second baseman Alec Seaton.
A&T got another run in the fifth. Maynard led off with a double and was moved over to third on a flyout from sophomore outfielder Camden Jackson. A single through the left side from sophomore Xavier Bussey scored Maynard to make it an 8-3 ballgame.
Jake Silverstein hit Maynard with a pitch to lead off the seventh. Jackson fouled out deep enough toward the Flyer third baseman to advance Maynard to second. He eventually went to third following a wild pitch. Bussey then knocked one deep enough into center field to score Maynard and make it 8-4, but sophomore designated hitter Chet Sikes struck out to end the inning.
The Aggies had a couple of chances down the stretch and even had two runners on in the home ninth, but they could not get that game-changing hit they needed to complete the comeback attempt.
"Baseball is crazy," said Hall. "A lot has to happen to win a baseball game, and it's hard to win, and I promise you their coach is telling them the same thing. You have to keep playing because eight runs in college baseball are not enough.
We built an inning in the bottom half, and Alec hit that (opposite field) home run and it kind of jolted us back in the game. That's all you want to see. If you continue to compete and you come out with that edge, whether you're down five or up five, you're going to start playing some good baseball and winning games."
After the Flyers big fourth inning, the Aggies bullpen played well. In his first taste of collegiate action, freshman Jaheim Brown turned in an excellent performance, going 2.1 innings and allowing two hits with two strikeouts. Freshman Stirling Thomas and sophomores Justin O'Neal and Jake Delisi combined to pitch three innings of relief without giving up a run.
Offensively, the Aggies had five players with multi-hit games, led by Seaton's 2-for-3 day, including the homer and a walk-drawn. Junior shortstop Anthony Hennings had a pair of doubles in his debut, and Canyon Brown turned in a double.
