WARDSVILLE -- The baseball season hasn’t quite started on the right foot for the Blair Oaks Falcons.
After dropping their season opener Monday, the Falcons lost 5-3 to the St. Francis Borgia Knights on Wednesday at the Falcon Athletic Complex.
“It was a step in the right direction,” Blair Oaks coach Mike DeMilia said. “We didn’t have a very good day Monday. I thought we competed and definitely showed some improvement today. Hopefully we’ll carry that over into this weekend.”
The Falcons started the game with a 1-2-3 inning including two strikeouts, but fielding issues kept Blair Oaks in the field longer than it should have been in the second.
Tanner McPherson started the inning when he reached on the first of three Falcon errors in the frame, advancing to second when the throw to first went wide. A wild pitch on ball four to Kabren Koelling then put runners on first and third with nobody out.
The first of two Blair Oaks balks allowed McPherson to score and moved Koelling to second before Justin Mort reached on the Falcons’ second error, which allowed Koelling to score. Mort moved to second when the throw to the plate sailed for Blair Oaks’ third error.
“We had a bit of a rough second inning,” DeMilia said. “But I thought we responded.”
Mort came around to score on a fielder’s choice grounder from Kaden Patke. Patke hit the ball to the brought-in infield and forced a throw to the plate, but Mort slid in ahead of the tag to put the Knights up 3-0.
Patke advanced to second on the Falcons’ second balk then scored when Tyler Kromer took a big lead off first with runners on first and third, forcing a step- off from the Falcon pitcher and giving Patke the opportunity to sprint to the plate ahead of the throw home.
With the help of two walks, two balks and three errors, the Knights jumped out to a 4-0 lead.
Borgia added another run in the top of the third on singles from Reagan Kandlbinder, McPherson and an RBI single from Mort.
The 5-0 lead was too much for the Falcons to overcome.
But they didn’t give up without a fight.
Justin Atnip began the Falcons’ portion of the third with a walk before Owen Schellman collected the first Blair Oaks hit with a soft liner to right field to put runners on first and second.
Nolan Laughlin added a single pulled just over the leaping Knights’ shortstop to load the bases, then Aidan Boeckmann brought in two runs with a soft liner the other way to right field.
“We strung some hits together, which is always big,” DeMilia said. “We had better at-bats, better approaches, we got better pitches to hit. I thought at times we took too many pitches.”
Boeckmann was caught trying to advance to second on the throw home, but Wil Libbert was able to keep the inning alive with a skied pop up to shallow left field, which the Borgia fielder couldn’t handle, bringing in the Falcons’ third and final run.
“Offensively, there were spurts of good stuff, but we struck out way too much,” DeMilia said. “That’ll come as we get farther into it.”
The Falcons had scoring opportunities with runners on first and second in the fifth, a leadoff single and stolen base in the sixth and two hits in the seventh, but were unable to capitalize as the Knights escaped jam after jam.
Blair Oaks got a few first pitching appearances Wednesday with Jacob Tellman starting and Chase Schnieders and Caiden Sanford coming on in relief.
“The pitchers threw really well,” DeMilia said. “… First outing is always a little rough at times. Few lumps, but I thought we did a lot of good things.”
Tellman pitched 2⅓ innings and allowed five runs -- two earned -- on two hits and two walks, while striking out three. Schnieders pitched the next 1⅓ innings and gave up three hits and two walks while striking out one.
Sanford pitched the final 3⅓ innings, striking out three and walking two while allowing one hit in a scoreless outing.
“He spotted his fastball really well and he got ahead of hitters,” DeMilia said. “He struggled with his breaking ball a little in the middle of his outing, but found it later. The fastball is what really got him.”
Laughlin and Boeckmann each had two singles for the Falcons, while Sanford, Davis and Schellman all had one.
Blair Oaks (0-2) will look for its first win when it plays Springfield Catholic and Father Tolton on Saturday at Springfield Catholic.
Borgia (3-0) will play in the Bank Classic on Friday and Saturday.