Opening night of the 2018 New England Collegiate Baseball League season was a back-and-forth affair between New Bedford and Newport, but it was the Bay Sox who improved to 1—0 on the season after defeating the Gulls 5 – 4. Nic Enright picked up the loss for Newport giving up 3 earned runs on five hits in 3.1 innings on the mound. On the other side, Sam Henrie earned the win for New Bedford as he went 2.1 innings without giving up a run or hit.

Newport struck first in the top of the second on an opposite-field solo homerun off the bat of Kody Hoese. The Gulls added two more in the top of the fifth after a timely two-out single by Dalton Reed plated Jack Gethings and Dillon Plew.

The Bay Sox did not go down quietly. Buddy Hayward’s leadoff walk, followed by Thomas Seidl’s single put runners on the corners for Austin Markman, who delivered with an RBI single to cut Newport’s lead to two. New Bedford added two more later in the inning thanks to sacrifice flies from both Elijah Brown and Logan Allen.

With the ballgame tied at 3 – 3 in the top of the sixth, Kody Hoese turned on a 1-0 pitch sending it over the left-field fence. His second solo homerun of the game gave Newport a 4 – 3 lead, but that was all the Gulls could muster up offensively as the Bay Sox added two more in the bottom of the seventh to give them a 5 – 4 lead they would not relinquish.

Throughout the night Newport struggled to put the ball in play. In total, New Bedford pitchers struck out 18 Newport hitters, mostly behind Jared Shuster’s 10 strikeouts in the first four and two-thirds innings.

Newport looks to capture its first win of the 2018 season in tomorrow’s home opener at Cardines Field as they take on the Mystic Schooners (0—1), first pitch set for 6:35 p.m. on the NECBL Broadcast Network.

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