The University of Idaho baseball club went up against the University of Montana baseball club with high hopes and came out on the losing end of 0-3.
The two teams met once on Saturday and then another two times on Sunday where the UI club was unable to overcome the Montana team, but kept it close Sunday as they lost 9-6 and 12-9.
“The offense really started to click in games two and three, and we’ve shown we can come out and score a lot of runs with our lineup,” assistant manager Clayton Uthoss said.
The UI club played three long games against a strong Montana team, and players walked away feeling like they competed well and gave their opponents a challenge. Daniel Burg said the three games gave them an idea of what kind of team they have and where they can go from here.
“We got a feeling of how the spring is going to go, we hit well and had a lot of support,” Burg said. “We put up runs, they didn’t stomp us, we stuck in and fought. Can’t wait to see how we do against Eastern Washington this next weekend.”
Dennis Heppner said Montana was a good team and they had a chance to win every game, but UI needed to pick it up a little sooner.
Anthony Strunk, the manager of the UI baseball club said he was proud of the way the guys played against a solid Montana team and he was happy with how his players acted.
“I was really proud of my guys this weekend, they went out and played this weekend against a great University of Montana team,” Strunk said. “We didn’t come away with a win like we wanted but my guys played hard — they kept their heads up.”
Strunk said part of the reason for their lack of success this weekend came from mental errors from the pitching staff and a lack of offense early on as their bats could not get started.
Regardless of the first week, Strunk said the baseball club is excited for its next game Saturday and Idaho is ready to prove its worth.
“Overall I was happy with this weekend, I have a great group of guys that want to win and love the game of baseball,” Strunk said. “We’re gonna hit practice hard this week and beat EWU this weekend, showing not only our fans but most importantly ourselves that we are a winning team.”
Strunk said he was thrilled with the turnout on the first weekend and he couldn’t be more grateful for the fans who came out and the junior high for hosting
games there.
The baseball club is back in action at 10 a.m and 2:30 p.m. Oct. 2 against EWU for a double-header at Moscow Junior High School.