Baseball Falls in Series Opener to Charlotte, 4-2

NORFOLK, Va. – In a game that featured 33 combined strikeouts, Charlotte's Johnny Sutryk hit a three-run homer to lift the 49ers to a 4-2 win over Old Dominion Friday evening at Bud Metheny Ballpark.
 
Trailing 4-0 in the sixth inning, Old Dominion (5-4) finally got things going on offense thanks to the Charlotte pitching staff. Evan Holman led off the inning getting hit by a pitch and moved to third on a pair of wild pitches by relief pitcher Ryan Degges. Degges then walked Kyle Edwards and hit Steven Meier to load the bases. Luke Waters followed with a deep fly ball to left that Carson Bayne tracked down for the first out of the inning, allowing Holman to score on the sacrifice fly. Edwards moved to third on the sac fly and when Meier stole second, scored when Rene Lastres' attempted throw went into center field to make the score 4-2. AJ Wilson came in to pitch for Charlotte and struck out Alex Bouche and after a walk to Maverick Stallings, induced a ground out to pinch-hitter Rowan Masse to end the threat.
 
Charlotte (6-4) scored a run in the third inning on an RBI double from Noah Furcht and made it 4-0 on Sutryk's three-shot in the fourth.
 
ODU had just two hits, a leadoff double in the bottom of the first by Edwards and a single in the fifth by Jake Ticer.
 
John Holobetz suffered the loss on the mound for the Monarchs, going four innings, allowing five hits and four runs with four strikeouts. Reliever Jay Cassady struck out nine batters in three innings of work and allowed just one hit. Brandon Pond struck out three in two innings of work.
 
The two clubs are back in action tomorrow at 2 p.m.