ST. DAVIDS, Pa.--Eastern Baseball opened the season series with the FDU-Florham Devils with a 6-5 loss Friday, dropping to 17-11 this season and 6-7 in the conference.

Despite out-hitting the Devils 10 to eight, the Eagles were only able to put runs on the board in the second inning and the eighth inning.

Eastern's Nick Moeltner (4-4) picked up the loss after pitching eight innings. He struck out four, walked none, allowed eight hits and allowed six runs, only two of which were earned runs. Eastern committed four errors Friday afternoon. Eastern has committed four or more errors in a game six times this year and are 4-2 in those games.

Eagles Kristian Cortizo and Dave Prager each picked up a team-high two hits in the loss. Both of Prager's hits were doubles. Batting second in the order, Scott Renauro reached base safely three times in four plate appearances with one hit and two walks. His team-high OBP rose to .464.

Eastern cracked the score column first, with an RBI-groundout by Devon Zigenfuss in the second inning followed by an RBI-single by Brendan Spall and an RBI-double by Dillon Schwartzer.

The Devils' starting pitcher, FJ Lucchetti settled in after allowing the three runs, and kept the Eagles from scoring again until after he left the game. Luchetti improved to 3-0, pitching seven innings while allowing two earned runs and striking out five.

Eastern trailed 6-3 going into the bottom of the eighth and earned back two runs with an RBI single by Greg DeSarro and a groundout double play by Kristian Cortizo. However, the inning came to an end when Mark Royer was picked off at first.

Eastern's Ben Melendez came in and pitched a one-two-three ninth inning, but Eastern couldn't rally for a comeback in the ninth, and also went down in order.

The Devils improved to 13-13 this season and 9-4 in the Freedom Conference.

Eastern travels to FDU-Florham for games two and three of the series on Saturday starting at 1 pm.

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