NUTTER FORT, West Virginia - After Salem's baseball team fell in some tight games during their opening weekend series with Shippensburg, they were ready to finally get back into the win column in their next series. For that series, they played host to local rival Fairmont State. The Falcons took the opening game of the series on Saturday, but Salem rallied to win the final 3 games of the series capped with a grueling 12 inning battle on Sunday night.. Those games played out as follows.

Fairmont State 4, Salem 3 (8 Innings)

In Game 1 of the series, Salem opened up the scoring with a Kaiden Zacharias triple that brought in Collin Curry in the bottom of the 4th. Zacharias would then score on a Tyler Shinn groundout. However, the Tiger advantage was short-lived as the Falcons added three runs of their own in the 5th. Salem then knotted up the game in the 6th when Luis Angarita put his speed on full display when he scored off of a Fairmont State throwing error. However, it would be Fairmont State who scored in the 8th after the game went into extras, and they took the game 4-3.

Salem 1, Fairmont State 0 (7 Innings)

For the final game of the day on Saturday, Salem had a defensive battle on their hands. Reliever Jhayden Raineri and starter Frankie Gulko showed excellent command from the mound. They combined for a total of 8 strikeouts in the game, and just 3 hits. On the offensive side of the game, Aaron Forbes made all that hard work from the mound pay off in the final inning with a walk-off sacrifice fly that allowed Jose Lojo to come in for the lone run of the game and the win.

Salem 7, Fairmont State 0 (7 Innings)

For the first game on Sunday, it was a field day for the Salem batters. The scoring started off in the first with Alex Harper advancing home on a Fairmont State error. From there, a single from Kaiden Zacharias and a double from Tyler Shinn brought in two more runs, and Salem controlled the game 3-0. In the very next inning, Salem added another run from the bat of Nathan Kuhn to make it 4-0. Colin Curry got into the action in the 3rd when he singled to bring in Luis Angarita to make the score 5-0. In the 4th, Brett Ehr brought in another run for the Tigers with a double. In the 5th inning, Salem added their final run with Zacharias scoring on another Fairmont State error. With a 7-0 advantage, it was up to the Salem pitching staff to keep the Falcons at bay the rest of the way. Starter Keegan Oliver joined with relievers Tyler Sammons and Ben Sitarenios to allow just 2 hits and 9 combined strikeouts to just that on the way to the 7-0 win.

Salem 5, Fairmont State 4 (12 Innings)

In the final contest of the day, Salem was in for the toughest test of their young season. The Tigers got off to a great start when Colin Curry scored off of a Jacob Hurley groundout in the first. However, a Falcons homerun in the 3rd and 3 Fairmont State runs in the 5th put the Tigers in a tough spot heading into the 6th inning. However, Salem responded to knot up the game thanks to singles from Luis Angarita and Collin Curry, and a triple from Tyler Shinn. What happened next, no one would have expected. With the game tied, there were 5 straight innings of scoreless baseball to push the game to the 12th inning (and 19th on the day). However, the tension was finally broken when Kaiden Zacharias hit a single to right field that brought in pinch runner Hayes Lightsey from third for another walk off win for the Tigers. This gave Salem their third straight win, and completed the 3-1 series win over Fairmont State.

After nearly 34 innings of baseball this weekend, the Salem baseball program will need to rest up a bit before they head into their next game. That game will come in just about a week when another local rival makes their way to Nutter Fort to take on the Tigers. This time it will be the Battlers of Alderson Broaddus who are scheduled to start a 3 game series against Salem on Friday, February 24th at 3 PM.