ESJ baseball handed a 9-1 loss by St. Amant

By JOHNNY PEPPO

Sports Editor

RESERVE – East St. John helped to open the softball and baseball season Monday afternoon, when the Wildcats played host to St. Amant, but the Gators got the better of the Wildcats in a 9-1 loss for ESJ.

St. Amant struck the scoreboard with an early run to get ahead, and extended the lead with another an inning later, before the Wildcats could get a man home. It was in the fourth inning when C.J. Brown managed an RBI single to keep ESJ within range, but he got stranded on base and the home team went into the bottom of the side down 2-1. There, St. Amant opened it up with a couple of line-drivers through the defense and began to connect with pitches before advancing runners to second and third on a wild pitch. Those two runs made it home two batters later on a 2 RBI single, and the Gators added three more before the end of the inning for a 6-1 lead.

The Wildcat defense stiffened in the fifth, but they couldn’t get anyone all the way home to scratch into the deficit. Freshman Josh Brown entered the game in the sixth inning and managed to slow the bleeding, but the Wildcats had trouble connecting off of the St. Amant pitchers and eventually fell 9-1 to the Gators.