The UIS baseball team began its 2017 season with a two-game-series against the Rockhurst University Hawks this past weekend.

Head coach Chris Ramirez, in his fourth season here at UIS, hopes to “be in the top half of the conference each year, which earns us a spot in the GLVC baseball tournament. From then on we take it one game at a time and push our way as deep into the playoffs and/or national tournament as we can.”

In Saturday’s game, the Prairie Stars struggled against the Hawks, ultimately losing 8-3. The Hawks jumped out to a 5-0 lead early in the game.

According to Ramirez, “Cole Taylor had a great game that day getting three hits. Kenny Hansen also had a good game at the plate, as well as Myles Hann.”

Ramirez added, “We really got stuck when they had two home runs that happened in the second and third, in addition to the other runs they scored also during the third and fourth, which is what really put us behind initially.”

UIS scored in the fifth after Hann singled to left to start the inning. A Hawks error put runners on first and second. Taylor took advantage of the situation, hitting a two-run triple to right center.

Senior outfielder Trey Hannam then connected with a high fastball, hitting an RBI single to left, making the score 5-3.

But just after the Prairie Stars got on the board, the Hawks responded by scoring another three runs, earning their 8-3 victory.

Hann said, “Overall, we took a pretty hard hit from it. There are good things to take from it but still things we need to work on. But it’s not terrible.”

The Prairie Stars were first to score in Sunday’s game when first baseman Mike Rothmund hit a triple out to left field bringing in Hannam for the first run of the game. After the first run, sophomore pitcher Adam Gregory held the Hawks scoreless during the first and second.

When the third inning began, the Hawks strung several hits together, loading the bases. The Hawks hit a grand slam, breaking the game open.

Hann said, “We caught some barrels ourselves, and hit them right at people, but that is just part of the game. Sometimes things go your way and sometimes they don’t.”

Throughout the rest of the game the Prairie Stars played keep-up. UIS worked hard to stay with the Hawks, but constant productive innings gave the Hawks a 16-6 win.

Even with the loss, Ramirez wanted to debut several players between pitchers and a couple pinch-hitters. The six pitchers were: Adam Gregory, Brayden Jensen, Jon Laird, Sam Geraci, Colby Carmichael, and Austin Lukaschewski, with the addition of pinch-hitters of Kenny Hansen and Troy Cantu.

Ramirez said, “We didn’t get a great start from the get-go and we were trying to get zeroes off of the mound. We need to figure out how to play clean defense, and that will be key for us and something we preach is playing all-around clean baseball. When you do that, win or lose, that’s all we can do.”

The Prairie Stars will be going on the road this weekend, but will return home to play Lindenwood University on March 7 at 2 p.m.