Immaculata walks off Pburg in wild, windy opener

The much anticipated 2018 season finally got underway as Phillipsburg traveled to face Immaculata at Diamond Nation. It was hardly baseball weather as it was cold and winds were somewhere around 40 mph. It was a promising start for the Liners as Sean Morro and Karrick Stansberry opened the season with back to back doubles to take a 1-0. Stansberry was stranded at second as Immaculata ace Noah Jordan struck out the next three batters. Immaculata then struck for three two out runs on three straight singles of Phillipsburg's Tyler Diefenbach. Staying true to his nickname, Diefen-K struck out 7 over the next four innings (9 total in the game). With the bases loaded Billy Oertel was hit by pitch, also known as getting Mom'd in honor of the single season HBP record holder Mom Tandry, put Pburg down 3-2 in the third. In the top of the fifth Oertel would strike again as Big Boy Billy delivered a huge two out two run wind aided triple to put Pburg ahead 4-3. The lead wouldn't last long as Immaculata's Leger would hit a line drive HR into the jet stream to tie the game. Immaculata sent four batters to the plate in the top of the seventh. Gallo hit a line drive over the head of a drawn in outfield with nobody out to win the game 5-4. Kabus from IMAC got the win in the opener for both teams. While it was nice to be on a field playing real games, the weather stunk and both teams were pretty happy to return indoors and warm up.