CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Columbia baseball (0-2, 0-0) dropped both games of Friday's season-opening doubleheader to No. 19 Virginia (6-0, 0-0) from Davenport Field at Disharoon Park.
Virginia won 4-1 in game one before earning an 11-3 victory in game two. Friday's games marked the first meetings between the two teams since 1926.
Game 1 Recap:
The Lions strung two hits together early on. Columbia's first hit of the season was a double to left-center field courtesy of
Hayden Schott in the second inning.
Anton Lazits followed up with a hard single that advanced Schott to third but the Lions weren't able to capitalize in the inning off Cavaliers starter Nick Parker.
Kyle Teel's home run in the bottom of the second inning off Lions starter
Andy Leon opened the scoring in game one. A half inning later, Columbia tied it with its first run of the season on a
Weston Eberly RBI single.
Andy Blake scored to make it a 1-1 ballgame.
Virginia re-took the lead in the bottom of the third when leadoff batter Griff O'Ferrall laced a sacrifice fly to left field to bring Harrison Didawick home.
The Cavaliers would extend its lead in the seventh inning off left-handed relief pitcher
Will Parkinson. Virginia plated two runs on an error and then a sacrifice fly to take a 4-1 lead. Jake Berry closed out the game with three scoreless innings to earn his first save of the season.
Leon pitched four innings and scattered three hits, surrendering two runs (one earned), while striking out four. He threw 61 pitches (41 strikes) in the outing and tossed a 1-2-3 frame in the first. Leon was relieved by Parkinson, who pitched three innings of two-run ball.
Camron Hubble worked a scoreless eighth inning for the Lions.
Schott was the lone Lion with multiple hits in game one, going 2-for-4 with a double. Blake,
Seth Dardar, Eberly, and Lazits all recorded hits for Columbia. The Lions out-hit the Cavaliers 6-5 in game one.
Game 2 Recap:
Cole Hage led off the ballgame with a solo home run on Virginia starter Brian Edginton's fourth pitch of the evening to put the Lions up 1-0.
The Cavaliers stormed back by scoring three runs in both the second and third innings. Henry Godbout got the home team on the board with a three-run home run off Lions starter
JD Ogden in the bottom of the second. Then in the third, Teel added on to his strong day at the plate with an RBI double. Ethan Anderson drove in two more with a base-hit to give Virginia a 6-1 lead.
Ogden lasted just 2.1 innings before
Justin Tucker came on in relief. Ogden gave up six earned runs and struck out two.
The Lions scored its second run of the game on an infield popup that fell in off the bat off Lazits. Blake hustled all the way around from first base to score. Godbout was charged with the error at second base and Virginia's lead was shortened to 6-2. Angelo Tonas was able to work out of trouble and strike out three to retire the side in the sixth inning.
For Virginia, Edginton was able to settle in after the leadoff home run and struck out nine over five innings of work.
The Cavaliers continued to add on to its lead. In the bottom of the sixth, Virginia rattled off four straight hits against
Derek Yoo. Godbout, O'Ferrall, and Ethan O'Donnell doubled in consecutive at-bats to help tack on two more runs.
Jafar Vohra was then called in from the bullpen for his Columbia debut and was greeted with a Jake Gelof RBI single. After a Casey Saucke sacrifice fly, it was 10-2 Virginia after six innings.
Columbia loaded the bases with no one out in the seventh. After Hage went down swinging, Blake smacked a sacrifice fly to plate
Skye Selinsky to make it a 10-3 game. Virginia reliever Jake Hodorovich was able to strand
Jack Kail and
Miles Blackwell to end the inning.
Thomas Santana made his collegiate debut for the Lions in game two and pitched a scoreless eighth inning.
The series finale between Columbia and Virginia is set for Sunday at 1 p.m. from Davenport Field at Disharoon Park.
Joe Sheets is expected to get the start for Columbia and Jack O'Connor will toe the rubber for Virginia. The game will air on ACCNX, where you can watch on ESPN.com or the ESPN app as long as ACC Network is part of your cable subscription.
For the latest on Columbia baseball, follow
@CULionsBaseball on Twitter and Instagram, and the web at
GoColumbiaLions.com.
