West Liberty’s baseball team defended their brand-new digs with a 9-3 victory over Lone Tree last week in the season-opening game.
This is West Liberty’s fourth-straight win over the Lions dating back to 2019.
After adding one run in the second inning, the Comets batted around and exploded for six runs in the bottom of the fourth, putting the game fully out of reach and threatening the mercy rule.
The Lions clawed back three in the top of the fifth to prevent an early ending, but that is all they would get.
West Liberty tacked on two more runs in the bottom of the sixth and held on in the seventh for the eventual 9-3 final score.
Individual Comets statistics were unavailable at publication time.
After last season’s 14-11 campaign, and only losing three seniors due to graduation, a majority upperclassman roster in 2024 will look to make serious noise.
A trio of junior pitchers in Tytan Griffith, Ryker Dengler and Caden Laughlin will look to lead the Comets on the mound this season.
Griffith leads all returning pitchers with 33 strikeouts from a year ago. Laughlin posted a solid 1.35 WHIP pitching exclusively out of the bullpen. Additionally, Dengler limited opposing batters to a .185 batting average last year.
Dengler also leads all returning batsmen with a .446 on-base percentage. Junior Seth Axsom leads all returners in batting average (.279) and is second in OBP (.436).
Junior Ryan Cassady ranks second in returning batting average (.274) and fourth in OBP (.384).
After taking on Benton Community in a doubleheader on Monday, May 20, the Comets will begin conference play this week.
It starts with a road trip for a solo game at West Branch (May 23), a doubleheader at Durant (May 27) and finishing up the series against the Wildcats a few days later (on May 30).
West Liberty will close out the month of May with a doubleheader back at home against Marion.