CONWAY, Ark. – The Central Arkansas baseball team came up just short in its ASUN series opener against North Alabama on Thursday, falling just short in an 8-7 comeback bid. The Bears started the night honoring the 31-year career of Associate Athletic Director
Steve East, who is retiring after the season.
The Bears (19-31, 13-16 ASUN) had four extra base hits, including home runs from each of
Keon Moseni and
Preston Curtis, but gave up a big inning to the Lions that put the Bears back early. Curtis had himself a game, going 2-for-3 at the plate with 5 RBI, hitting a homer and a double to keep the Bears in the game.
Central Arkansas opened the scoring in the second inning.
Tanner Leonard reached on a single up the middle, and then stole second to get into scoring position.
Zeb Allen took a pitch off the arm to put two on, and with two outs, Curtis blasted a double to the left field corner, scoring both runners to put the Bears up 2-0. North Alabama would respond with five runs in the second, mounting a two-out rally to jump ahead.
Sam Reynolds opened the bottom of the second taking one off the back, getting a free base to start the inning. After moving over on a sacrifice bunt, Reynolds reached third on a groundout to put him 90 feet from scoring. Moseni took care of that in spades, though, driving a ball out past the right field fence to score two more for the Bears. After the Lions scored two more in the top of the third, the middle innings went by without much action, despite the Bears leaving a runner on in the fourth. Central Arkansas cut further into the lead in the sixth inning, after
Nathan Negre opened the frame with a first-pitch single, and Curtis blasted his seventh home run of the season to make it 7-6 Lions.
UNA added one final run in the top of the eighth, which was matched by Central Arkansas in the bottom. Negre started things off with a ball that towered toward the foul line beyond first base, and when it landed, it kicked into the corner, allowing the speedy freshman to reach third base for his team-leading fourth triple of the year. A sacrifice fly later, and the deficit was again cut to one. But both lineups went scoreless in the ninth, as the Bears flew out to end the game.
Central Arkansas and North Alabama are back on the field tomorrow at 1 p.m. for game two of the final ASUN series of the regular season.
