Spring has Sprung! Baseball Starts 2021 Campaign with 5-3 Win over UT Martin

In the same way our culture sees Memorial Day as the unofficial start of Summer, the sounds of metal bats clinking and leather gloves popping is the unofficial start of Spring. This isn't meant to be a slight against softball (they started their season last week). I just grew up playing baseball and thus equate Baseball and Spring. On College Baseball's Opening Day, Samford and UT Martin got their 3 game series underway this afternoon as Samford ace Sam Strickland picked up the win on the day by lasting 5.0 innings, allowing 0 runs on 5 hits, 0 BB, and punching out 6. Chase Isbell went 2.0 innings and striking out 2, Charles Crosby went 1.0+, striking out 1 and allowing 2 Skyhawks to cross the plate, and Carson Cupo picked up the save with 2 punch outs in the 9th. Skyhawk starting pitcher Cannon went 4.0 innings and was tagged with the loss after allowing 4 earned runs.

Samford reached base 12 times, one half from hits and the other half dozen due to walks. Max Pinto led the Bulldog offense by driving in 3 of his teammates, 2 on a 2 out single to open the scoring in the 4th inning as his hard hit ground ball raced past the diving Skyhawk Short Stop. Pinto then dropped a perfectly placed sacrifice bunt in the 6th to push the Samford lead out to 5-0. USA Baseball Golden Spikes Award Watch List and SOCON Preseason Player of the Year Brooks Carlson laced a 2 strike- 2 out ball into left field to bring home another Bulldog in the 4th. In the field, both teams committed one error, the first of the game going against the Skyhawks in the 6th and the Bulldogs committed their sole error of the game in the 9th.

The series will continue tomorrow at 2pm and will wrap up Sunday afternoon at 1pm. Both games will be streamed on ESPN+ and live stats can be found by following @SamfordBaseball on Twitter, as well as video highlights throughout the game.

Photo taken by Marvin Gentry