It didn’t take long for Pineville to find momentum during Friday’s game against Oneida Baptist Institute. Rolling into the evening on an eight-game losing streak, the Mountain Lions got some timely hits and eased past the Mountaineers 11-1 in five innings.

“It feels good,” said Pineville coach Chris Murphy about the win. “I know they feel a lot better about it. You can tell by their morale. They’re a lot happier. It’s not fun getting beat day in and day out.

“We’ve got a schedule coming up where we got some wins. I kind of loaded the schedule up early, playing some good teams. It kind of backfired a little, but we got some games coming up…that are very winnable games.”

The Mountain Lions were stingy on defense and didn’t give up any easy runs. On the mound, Josh Holland picked up the victory allowing six hits and one run while striking out seven batters.

Reed Baker paced Pineville at the plate going 3-for-4 with two doubles and a single. He finished the game with five RBIs and two runs.

Deon Coffman also slung the bat well finishing with two hits and two RBIs. Reese Capps, Cole Gent and Josh Holland tallied two runs apiece during the game.

“The key to tonight was we didn’t make (many) fielding errors. We hit the ball, good base running. When we play good baseball we’re not a bad baseball team,” said Murphy. “(Josh Holland) threw strikes. That’s what I’ve been trying to get my pitchers to understand.

“I said you all are not going to strike people out. If you just throw strikes (and) make them be a hitter, we got a good defense behind us. He did that tonight. He pitched all five innings. He kept it under 80 pitches. You do that, you’re going to be pretty successful.”

Up by one run heading into the bottom half of the second, the Mountain Lions began pulling away. Capps ripped a two-run double to right field to give Pineville a 4-1 lead with no outs on the board.

After back-to-back strikeouts, Baker hit an RBI single to increase the lead to 5-1. The inning ended with the bases loaded.

The Lions put a stamp on the game in the third inning. After stranding two batters during OBI’s at-bat, Gent and Holland reached on errors. A dead ball allowed Gent to cross home plate and increase the lead to 6-1.

Baker smacked a three-run double into the outfield to balloon the lead to 9-1. He later scored on an RBI single by Coffman to give Pineville a 10-1 lead. A bases loaded walk gave Coffman the green light to score and gave the Lions a 10-run lead.

Neither team got much going in the final two innings. The Mountaineers’ inability to score in the fifth ended the game with the Lions walking away victorious.

Up Next

Pineville (2-8) will play a doubleheader on Saturday at J. Frank White against Hancock County, Tennessee and Sunbright, Tennessee. First pitch is slated for 10 a.m.

OBI (1-4) will play a doubleheader against McCreary Central (2-3) on Saturday.

Reach Anthony Cloud at 606-302-9090 or on Twitter @AnthonyCloudMDN