Taylor Hodges, Sports Information Director

CORINTH, Miss. – The No. 2 Lions (2-3) played their first home contest on the road on Friday, and dropped the first contest 2-1 in a three-game series with No. 22 Indiana Institute of Technology (1-0).

The Lyon transfer Tyson Campbell earned the start on the mound after winning game one in the four-game series last weekend against Faulkner. Campbell got through the first two innings relatively comfortably, but had some trouble in the top of the third when the Warriors were able to get two runs in, all off of walks and hit-by-pitches.

Campbell came back out in the top of the fourth and got out of the inning without adding to the deficit. The Lions had a chance to cut into the Indiana Tech lead in the bottom half after De'Mikyle Holmes got on base and ended up at third base with two outs. But Warriors pitcher Nate McBroom was able to get out of the jam after forcing Dom Pisano to ground out to first.

The second-ranked hosts had another opportunity to cut into the two-run deficit after Will McCall reached first on an error by the Indiana Tech shortstop, and he was able to get to third base on a throw-down error when attempting to steal second.

With the runner on third and two outs, Bryce Lester had a full count but was punched out by the umpire, and the visitors were able to keep the zero on the board.

After back-to-back batters got on base for the Warriors in the top of the sixth inning, freshman Alex Huey came on for Campbell in relief.

With runners at the corners, Huey was able to force Taylor Nychyk to line out to Lester at short. Jake DeFries was the runner at first, and he attempted to steal second base. As he made his run, Christian De Los Santos tried to take home. But the freshman James Dodd held on to the ball and tagged De Los Santos out for the second out.

Huey was able to strike out Trevor MacDonald to allow the Lions to escape unscathed.

Freed-Hardeman got one run back in the bottom of the eighth inning as four straight batters reached on a walk.

Senior Collin McPherson – playing the designated hitter in the contest – was able to bring in Lester to make it a 2-1 game heading into the final inning.

Huey did what he had been doing since his entrance in the game and forced the Warriors to go three up, three down to give his offense a chance to tie or win the game in the final inning.

The Lions were unable to do so, and head into tomorrow's nine-inning double-header down 1-0 in the series.

First pitch on Saturday is set to be at 12 noon.