Indians Split Conference Openers

By Clint Cox
The Chipola Indians baseball squad opened up the 2009 Panhandle Conference season with a split, winning on Friday in Pensacola and then falling at home on Saturday to Tallahassee. They got the conference schedule off to a good start with a 10-0 win over the Pirates as Pat Corbin went the distance and pitched the shutout against the defending Panhandle Conference Champions. Chipola had the hot bats as they stroked four home runs, with two coming from Joey Rapp. Marc Bourgeois came up with a home run and Andy Fermin stroked a grand slam to lead the Indians offensively.
For as well as they played on Friday, Saturday’s contest against Tallahassee turned out to be a different story. They trailed for much of the ball game and, although they mustered a late game rally, fell 10-9 to the Eagles. Tallahassee took an early 2-0 lead before Chipola countered in the bottom of the second inning with four runs. Bourgeois singled and Jake Rogers drew a walk. Daniel Renfroe RBI single scored Bourgeois and Blake Newalu’s RBI single scored Rogers. Renfroe later scored and Newalu came home on a RBI single from Dayne Read. That gave Chipola a 4-2 lead, which held until the fourth inning. The Eagles struck for five runs in the fourth and then added two more in the fifth inning to take a 9-4 lead. Chipola chipped away at that lead with two runs in the fifth inning as Bourgeois doubled and then scored on a RBI single by Jordan Lucas. Rogers then came up with a RBI double to score Bourgeois to make it a 9-6 game. Tallahassee added another run, which turned out to be the winning run, in the top of the ninth inning. In the bottom of the ninth Indian Mark Ellis made it a 10-9 game with a three run homer. But the rally fell short and with the loss Chipola fell to 1-1 in conference play and 17-10 overall. They took on Northwest Florida on Wednesday in Niceville but the results of that game were not available at press time. The Indians will be back in action this weekend when they play host to Gulf Coast on Friday at 4 pm and Pensacola on Saturday at 1 pm.