On Feb. 26, the Waynesburg’s baseball team opened their season as they faced off against an out of Conference opponent Penn State Altoona.

Junior Dalton Lucey would take the mount for Waynesburg as he gave up no runs in two innings of work.

Senior Gavin Pratt would pitch in the third and fourth innings giving up one run in the third inning to Fred Guarino IV who would score two out of the three of the Lions runs. Waynesburg would go down 2-0 early in the fifth inning after another Guarino homerun off junior pitcher Ethan Erhard who gave up two runs in two innings of work.

The Yellow Jackets would answer in the bottom of the fifth inning with a single from junior Hunter Hamilton which advanced the runners and sophomore Garret Comer’s RBI single which cut the lions lead to just one.

After a graduate student Mike Bell Walk, senior Utility man Alec Engelmore would lace a two-run RBI double into the Right Center Field gap giving Waynesburg a 4-2 lead.

“We just scored a run, so we had momentum, and I saw the situation we were in,” Engelmore said. “I knew we needed a big hit to take the lead so when I hit it, I was just hoping the center fielder wouldn’t track it down like my at bat before that and we had talked about a double celebration before the game so it was cool to be the first one to do it and get the fans into the game.”

The Lions would cut the deficit to within one with another solo homerun by Corey Chamberlain.

Engelmore got the save and close the game out for Waynesburg in the seventh inning.

“I love the opportunity to be a two-way,” Engelmore said. “I get to hit and help the offense, but I also get to pitch and control the pace of the game and I enjoy coming in to close games because I can go all out, for three outs to shut the door.”

Game two was a different story for the Yellow Jackets, as it was all Penn State Altoona. The Yellow Jackets lost 17-6 to the Lions in game two.

“Some positives I took from game two, despite the score, are that we had some young pitchers step up, and they will be key factors for our pitching staff in the near future,” Comer said.

During the matchup, the Yellow Jackets used nine different pitchers, four of whom were freshmen.

The Lions led 4-2 until the fourth inning, when they exploded for 11 runs on 11 hits to make the score 15-2. The Lions added two more runs in the fifth to extend their lead to 17-3. The Yellow Jackets were able to score three runs in the bottom of the sixth inning.

Included in these runs was Garrett Comer’s first career home run. “It felt good to get my first career home run; I was hungry for it to start the season,” Comer said.

Mike Bell went 2/2 with an RBI, and Hamilton earned a hit and brought in two runs.

The Yellow jackets will begin their spring break trip in Florida starting on Saturday.

“The big thing this year is to be selfless with us at bats and to sacrifice at bats to score runs. Everyone on the team has already bought into that philosophy and it showed in the games on Wednesday,” Engelmore said. “Fans should expect us to go down to go down to Florida and play competitive baseball. This team is resilient even when we are down a couple of runs, we don’t fold we battle back. Every game we play we play with energy, and it helps us feed off each other.”

Waynesburg will start the trip with a doubleheader against Wilkes on Sunday, with the first pitch set for 12 p.m.