Liberty hands Titans loss in baseball season opener

HAMILTON, Ill. The Liberty Eagles shut down West Hancock in the Titans first baseball game of the season Thursday.

Pitcher Jared Shover did not allow a hit until Kendall Summers two-out single in the bottom of the seventh to help Liberty defeat West Hancock 7-1 in the West Central Conference South Division contest.

We have a veteran team, and we expect them to come out and play, said West Hancock Head Coach Lee Purchatzke. We knew this was a good team. We knew we had to beat them to win the conference. Its pretty disappointing.

Liberty jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the top of the first inning with consecutive doubles by Tyler Ormond, Marc Rush and Lane Hanzel off West Hancock starting pitcher Paxton Harmon. The Eagles added a run in the second inning to make the score 3-0.

(They hit) a couple of mistakes early, Purchatzke said. Theyre good hitters, and they put the bat on the ball. Leaving the ball up against a good team like that, theyre going to make you pay. After that first inning, Paxton got his breaking stuff going a little better and kept things a little more off-balanced.

West Hancock threatened in the bottom of the first with one-out walks to Austin Hardy and Collin Dooley, but a double play ended the Titans inning.

You give him credit, he pitched a great game. No doubt about that, but if this team is going to challenge for a regional, youre going to have to beat pitchers like that, Purchatzke said. Youre going to have to get them off the mound. Obviously, were not ready yet.

Liberty put the game out of reach in the seventh inning, taking advantage of a two-out error that scored a run. Isaac Murfin followed with a three-run home run over the centerfield fence to make the score 7-0.

We made a couple of plays defensively, but there were a couple of others we could have made that could have kept this a 2-0, 3-0 game, maybe, Purchatzke said.

Shover had thrown 68 pitches through the first six innings, but the Titans made the senior right-hander work in the seventh inning. Harmon walked and Summers followed with a single up the middle on an 0-2 count. Harmon scored the lone run off a Liberty error on a ball hit by Coy Dorothy.

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Liberty hands Titans loss in baseball season opener