By Mark Carpenter
People’s Defender
Coach Josh Reaves and his Manchester Greyhounds baseball squad got their 2023 season off to a rousing start on Monday afternoon as they traveled to Portsmouth Clay and handed the host Panthers a 12-1 defeat.
The Hounds struck for four runs in the top of the second to take a lead that they never relinquished, adding three more to their advantage in the top half of the fifth. Two more in sixth and three in the seventh made it 12-0 Manchester, before the Panthers avoided the shutout by scoring their lone run in the bottom of the seventh.
The Hounds got strong mound work on their Opening Day as right handers Leland Horner and Aaron Lucas combined on a four-hitter, Horner going the first three frames for the win, fanning seven Panthers, and Lucas tossing the final four innings.
At the plate, the Hounds banged out eight hits and took advantage of Clay miscues to put up 12 runs, eight of them of the unearned variety. Connor Darnell went 2 for 4 and scored twice while cleanup hitter Luke Applegate garnered four runs batted in.
The Hounds opened Southern Hills Athletic Conference play on Tuesday, hosting the West Union Dragons, then ventured across the Ohio River on Wednesday to face the Bracken County Polar Bears. The challenging season-opening week continues on Thursday, March 30 with a conference road game at Eastern Brown, followed up by a SHAC road trip to Whiteoak on Friday. On Saturday, April 1 the Hounds will host Sciotoville East in am 11 a.m. doubleheader.