Baseball team falls in state tournament opener

The Eastern Florida State College baseball team opened the FCSAA State Baseball Tournament with a 10-2 loss to Northwest Florida State College Friday evening at Publix Field at Joker Marchant Stadium in Lakeland.

It looked as if the Titans would jump out to the early lead on back-to-back doubles by Jeff Korte and Elian Merejo in the second inning but Korte was called out at home plate on a close play to keep things scoreless.

The Titans would score the first run of the game in the third inning as Sebastian Rivera singled, went to third on Norberto Navarro's single and scored on Jacob McFadden's single. But the lead would not last as Northwest Florida State would score twice in the bottom of the third inning and add three more in the fourth inning to take a 5-1 lead.

Eastern Florida State would cut it to 5-2 as Navarro scored on Korte's RBI groundout but that was as close as the Titans would come.

Northwest Florida State broke the game open in the sixth inning, scoring four times.

Navarro, McFadden, Korte and Dylan Owens each had two hits in the game as the Titans had 11 in the game.

The Titans (31-18) will play in an elimination game Saturday night at 7 p.m. at the stadium against the loser of the final game of the evening between Polk State College and Palm Beach State College.