By Spencer Allenback 

The Pack opened its baseball season over the weekend.  The Montana State-Billings Yellowjackets made the trip to the steel city, winning both games on Sunday after the pack won the two games on Saturday.

 The final score of the first game was 21-16, with the game lasting over four hours and seeing eight different pitchers from the Pack. The final score of the second game was 6-5 in favor of the Yellowjackets.

First pitch was thrown at 11 a.m. Sunday morning, and the Yellowjackets came out ready to play. Jeremiah Struble, a sophomore pitcher, started the game for the Pack. Struble had a rough first inning giving up a grand slam to Kevin Zukaitis, a senior utility player for Montana State-Billings.

The Pack didn’t score until the second inning, when senior infielder Jye Lamphere hit a sacrifice fly to bring home the Thunderwolves first run. A second run was put on the board in the second inning when Beau Stevens, a senior outfielder scored off a wild pitch.

Andrew Castaneda a junior outfielder had a great diving catch in the top of the third inning.

“I got a good jump on it, and I knew I could get to it,” Castaneda said.

Castaneda also had a great day hitting, going 4-5 and driving in three runs for the Pack.

The fourth inning was huge for the Yellowjackets. They scored eight runs, and seemed to be hitting the ball wherever they wanted to.  Colby Robinson, a sophomore out of Rexburg, Idaho, was big contributor to the success of the inning, with a bases clearing double that drove in three runs.

The Thunderwolves also had a good fourth inning also scoring five runs on five hits.  But after the huge inning the Pack could not mount the full comeback.

The second game got started about 3:30 p.m. when Nick Cervantes, a junior pitcher, took the mound for his turn against the Yellowjackets.

Josiah Rodriquez a senior first baseman and designated hitter had a good game going 2-3 and driving in one run for the Thunderwolves.

Another big fourth inning for the Yellowjackets was the deciding factor for the game. They scored four runs in the inning, two in which came off wild pitches. The two losses don’t mean much with a long season ahead for the Pack.

“We have great pitching to us as far as we can go,” said Castaneda, “We can obviously put up runs when we need to, so it should be a good season.”