There were plenty of Orange Panthers learning on the job to open the 2020 baseball season.
On Monday night, they had plenty of time to get used to life at the varsity level.
In a game that dragged for over three hours and 15 minutes, Western Alamance defeated Orange 9-7 in nine innings. The Warriors appeared to be set to fall after the Panthers loaded the bases in the seventh and eighth innings, each time with less than two out needing only one to win. Each time, the Warrior defense came up with a big play to escape the jam.
In the 9th, Austin St. Laurent opened with a double in the right field gap. He scored off a single from Cody Acosta. Later, Harris Moss scored Acosta on a sacrifice fly for insurance.
On a night where five Orange players made their varsity debut, the Panthers came back from three separate deficits to tie. The Panthers took its only lead of the game when third baseman Cooper Hench blooped a two-out, two-run single to centerfield to score Joey Berini and Jaren Sikes in the bottom of the sixth inning, putting Orange ahead 6-5.
It didn’t last long. In the 7th, Western first baseman Kaden Smith blasted a two-run homer after Acosta drew a leadoff walk.
Trailing 7-6, Orange loaded the bases in the bottom of the seventh. Ryan Hench, in his varsity debut, scored off a balk to tie the game. The bases were still loaded with no out after Hench’s run, but the Warriors got a strikeout from pitcher Cole Huff, followed by a 1-2-3 double play to send the game to extra innings.
In the eighth, Cooper Hench drew a one-out walk, followed by a double down the left field line by Will Walker to send Hench to third. After Ryan Hench was intentionally waked, Huff got another clutch strikeout (on a 3-2 pitch when a walk would have ended the game) and a groundout to send the game into the ninth.
Orange’s entire outfield played its first varsity game. Berini’s younger brother, Jackson, entered the game in the fourth inning after playing for Stanford last year.
With Cooper Porter’s transfer to Wilson Fike, Orange only had four starters from last year in the lineup. One of those, senior designated hitter Dayne Watkins, was injured in the fifth inning running out a ground ball and didn’t return.
“It was a character game for us,” said Orange coach Jason Knapp. “I think we’re going to grow leaps and bounds from this game. We learned a lot about ourselves as individuals and baseball players. We fought. It just didn’t go our way at the end of the day.”
It was Orange’s longest game since the May 16, 2017 state playoff game against West Brunswick. The Trojans won 2-1 in nine innings to advance to the state quarterfinals after tying the game in the seventh inning.
At times, Orange’s youth was painfully apparent. Playing on a blustery night that made fly balls tricky, the Panthers finished with seven errors. Orange left 13 men on base.
Orange trailed 2-0 at the end of a half inning. Joey Berini, who finished 2-for-5 with three runs scored, scored in the bottom of the first inning off a bases loaded walk from Watkins. Connor Funk knocked in Cooper Hench off a fielder’s choice ground out to even the game.
“The team has a lot of character,” Knapp said. “They work hard in the offseason. They play hard together. We did ourselves in a whole with errors. At the end of the day, this team fought hard and as a coach that’s all you can ask for.”