The USI baseball team started strong in the first inning with three doubles in a row but the team eventually fell to Grand Valley State University in a 4-3 loss in the eleventh inning.

Senior center fielder Hamilton Carr, sophomore second basemen/shortstop Sam Griggs and senior right fielder Kyle Kempf scored the points for USI.

Head Coach Tracy Archuleta said when Grand Valley’s pitcher Troy Dykhuis switched up his pitching it threw USI off balance.

“Their pitcher made an adjustment and it kept us off balance,” Archuleta said. “Our guys did not make an adjustment and we kind of got in a rut a little bit and became stale. “

Despite USI losing the majority of their pitching staff from last season due to graduation or injuries, Archuleta felt the pitching this game was good overall.

The Eagles are playing Grand Valley State two more times this weekend and are hoping to improve in those games.

“It’s baseball, there are a lot of games in there but we got to do a better job playing and making adjustments when we need,” Archuleta said. “We need to understand what our role is at the plate at that time.”

Carr who scored one of the runs said that the team was thrown off by Grand Valley’s pitchers and they ran into some trouble with that.

“Like our coach was saying we were ready to hit the fastball that he was throwing to us and then he started mixing off-speed,” Carr said. “I think that sort of started messing with our guys because then we weren’t really able to hit the fastball very much.”

Carr said the Eagles are hoping to come back out tomorrow to pull off a win and because there are multiple returning players he said they have what it takes to do so.

“For position players we have a lot of guys that have been playing here for five years like me, Kyle, Cope, Gunn and Bertram,” Carr said. “We are all seniors here and have been here for a while so we know what it takes to move forward and learn from our mistakes.”