The Armstrong River Hawks Varsity Baseball team started opened their regular season at home Friday evening against the Freeport Yellow Jackets. Armstrong wasn’t able to come away with a victory in the back and forth game, falling to the Yellow Jackets 10-6. Jacob Parisi (pictured) earned the opening day start and recorded 2 strikeouts and 4 earned runs in three innings before Eli Hickman finished the game on the mound for the River Hawks.
The Armstrong River Hawks Baseball and Softball teams have been waiting for a long time to open their season on the new fields at Armstrong High School, and Friday both clubs were able to check their home opener off their list.
Both teams got their games started at 3:45 with the boys taking on the Freeport Yellow Jackets and the softball team squaring off against the Indiana Little Indians. The games ended around the same time, but with different outcomes.
The River Hawks softball team beat Indiana in just 5 innings, thanks to the 10-run rule. Armstrong was able to defeat the Little Indians 15-4 thanks to a good overall perfomrance. After the game, River Hawks Varsity Softball Head Coach Shauna Troup said it’s nice to win, but even nice to win big on opening day.
“It was a huge opening day for us, especially because it was on the new turf. Monday during the scrimmage we looked rough, but it was nice to come out and win big. We put balls in play, we were very disciplined at the plate and I was really pleased with that because it’s something we have really been focusing on,” Troup said.
The Armstrong River Hawks Varsity Softball team celebrated their home opener Friday afternoon with a 10-run rule 15-4 win over Indiana in the fifth inning. Ali Bowers (pictured) took off from third in a part of the River Hawks 8-run second inning which helped to propel Armstrong to victory.
The River Hawks baseball team weren’t as luck on opening day as the softball team however. Armstrong battled back and forth with Freeport through 7 innings before falling 10-6 to the Yellow Jackets. After the game Armstrong Baseball Head Coach Ed Morris said it was exciting to play on the new field, but they have room to improve before the next time out.
“We were all looking forward to breaking in the new field. I think a lot of our kids had some nerves in the debut and I think that lead to miscues. We’re going to learn from that and a lot of it’s my fault, we should be better prepared, but it’s back to the drawing board,” Morris said.
Both the River Hawks softball and baseball teams will play on Monday, with the softball team travelling to Freeport to play the Yellow Jackets at 4:00 PM and the baseball team will be home again to host Deer Lakes at 4:00 PM.