Hampden-Sydney, Va.- When Eastern University Baseball took the field for their season opener against Rutgers-Camden this afternoon, it was the first time the Eagles had faced live pitching outside or played defense on an infield since the fall non-traditional season. The effects of considerable time off the diamond were evident as a couple major miscues led to all five Raptor runs in a 5-2 loss. 

The Eastern offense struggled to put hits together against the Rutgers-Camden starter, and the Raptors were able to break through with three unearned runs against Nick Moeltner in the fourth. They loaded the bases with two outs. It looked like Moeltner was out of the jam with a ground ball, but an error gave the Raptors the opportunity to make an inning. 

The Raptors added two more runs in the bottom of the fifth after a throwing error on a short chopper allowed a runner to score from second. and the batter to reach third. Rutgers-Camden scored the fifth run of the game when the next batter hit a sacrifice fly.

The Eagles closed the gap off the Raptor bullpen in the eighth, but they left two runners on in the inning.

"We did not come up with the big play when we needed it today," commented head Coach Matt Midkiff, "their starter did a nice job, and he threw hard, but we had chances to get out of innings on defense and to extend innings on offense and it did not happen today. At this point in the year, velocity is tough to handle, but I think we can get better because of this."

Moeltner went four innings and took the loss despite not giving up an earned run. Kristian Cortizo drove in the only two runs of the day for the Eagles.