HPU baseball drops first game of the weekend at Liberty

• High Point fell on the road to Liberty by a score of 11-1 on Friday.
• The Panthers drop back to .500 overall at 8-8 and are 0-1 in the Big South.
• Junior Austen Zente had two of HPU’s five hits and scored the lone Panther run of the game.

LYNCHBURG, Va. – The High Point University baseball team dropped the first game of its weekend series at Liberty by a score of 11-1 on Friday afternoon in Lynchburg, Va. Junior Austen Zente had two hits and a run scored for the Panthers.

“I have to give a lot of credit to Caleb Evans,” head coach Criag Cozart said. “He ran right through us today. Liberty was really scrappy at the plate. Shepherd and Artis got the home runs and that was the game. This was game one of three so we can still win this series but we need to come out and be a lot better in a lot of different areas.”

Sophomore Andrew Gottfried dropped to 1-1 on the season after giving up seven earned runs on seven hits and two walks with five strikeouts in 5-1/3 innings of work.

Caleb Evans went the distance for Liberty, allowing just one earned run on five hits and a walk while striking out 10 to earn his third win of the season for LU.

High Point drops to 8-8 on the season and start Big South play at 0-1 with the loss while Liberty improves to 10-6 overall and 1-1 in the conference.

After three scoreless innings, Liberty got on the board with four runs in the fourth. The Flames then added six runs in the sixth and another run in the seventh to extend the lead to 11-0.

High Point scored its lone run of the day in the ninth to bring the final score to 11-1. Zente and senior Josh Greene led off with back-to-back singles then junior Zack Gray drove in the HPU leadoff hitter with an RBI single.

High Point and Liberty continue their weekend series on Saturday at 5 p.m., when the two teams converge at Liberty Baseball Stadium for the second of three games.

9 thoughts on “HPU baseball drops first game of the weekend at Liberty

  1. Hitting Coach HPU,
    Bring back PETERS! You are hitting .236?? Or is it bad recruiting? Don’t swing no where near the way UNCG does( with Triad Kids)!

  2. I agree totally with HP.. No disrespect. But when you rely on K Smith in evaluating hitter YOU ARE in trouble. Danny Robinson, please share about the talent in the Triad..

  3. I’m sure the 29 runs given up over the last 2 games are the hitting coach’s fault as well?

    Let’s not talk about how HP has 15 home runs through 16 games (after only having 30 homers through 56 games last season), or the 29 errors HP has in 16 games, or even the fact that 2 of the highest batting averages on the team are players who aren’t local and were recruited in to HP this season.

    Anyone that is giving up or whining 16 games into the season doesn’t know nearly as much about baseball as they think they do.

    Oh, and go Panthers!

  4. Ahhh negative . Not Cozart or Smith. Just reading the posts. Are you a parent of a kid that is not getting to play ,or is there something else or someone you mad at ? Always the coaches fault. You people kill me with the blame game. Its baseball dude a game that’s set up for you to fail more times than success. Hey remember2 for 10 is is a batting average of .200. You get released. Go 3-10 300 batting average get a million dollars. Do the math. Drop 2 passes in the nfl you get release . I guess you don’t get it. But maybe you can figure it out. Mr know it all .

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