The Lincoln baseball team traveled to Hagerstown on Monday, April 13, for a Tri-Eastern Conference battle of two of the area’s best pitchers: Ben Bates for the Eagles and Kaden Hall for the Tigers. Typically, both are strikeout pitchers, but in this game, both got off to a rocky start.
Hall issued a leadoff walk to Eagle shortstop Braylon Buckles, and Braxton Dick reached base on a Tiger throwing error with Buckles moving to third base on the play. Dustin Lunsford grounded out to score Buckles before Hall struck out the next two batters to end the threat. The Eagles led 1-0 without the benefit of a base hit.
In the bottom of the inning, Bates, a power pitcher, struggled to find the strike zone. Bates walked the first four Tigers batters to score a run and hit the next batter with a pitch to score another run. Three more Tigers crossed the plate on wild pitches before Bates worked out of the inning.
Hall struck out the side in the top of the second inning and the Tigers tacked on five more runs in the bottom of the second. The first four Tiger batters reached base on Eagle errors. Nick Tinkle drew a one-out walk before Dawson Brown collected the first hit of the game for either team with a two-RBI single to push the Tiger lead to 10-1 after two innings.
Lincoln brought Dick to the mound in relief in the bottom of the third inning and the Tigers expanded their lead to 14-1. Graham Vinson hit a one-out home run, Jack Rector tripled, Zack Logston hit an RBI single, and Tinkle tripled to plate Logston and later scored on an error.
Hall struck out the side in the top of the fourth.
Neither team scored again and the game was halted after five innings because of the 10-run mercy rule. Hall ended his night with 12 strikeouts and did not surrender a hit. Bates took the loss.
Lincoln head coach Jeff Gwin said his team has to learn to compete.
“The Tri-Eastern Conference is a strong baseball conference,” Gwin said. “We scratched out a run in our first at-bat and I really thought we would battle harder today. We beat the teams we are expected to beat, but we have to get to the point where we battle against the teams like Hagerstown, Northeastern and Winchester. We are young, but that is not an excuse. We will continue to work to improve.”
Hagerstown head coach Jay Hale said Bates is a good pitcher.
“We were looking forward to batting against Bates,” Hale said. “He had an off night and struggled to find the strike zone. It was hard for our hitters to adjust. On the other hand Kaden (Hall) was lights out. His ball moves a lot and he is hard to hit when he is on.”
Lincoln (2-4, 0-1 TEC) 1 0 0 0 0 1
Hagerstown (7-0, 2-0 TEC) 5 5 4 0 – 14
Lincoln hits: None
Hagerstown hits: Brown, Logston, Rector, Tinkle, Vinson (2)
A version of this article appeared in the April 22 2026 print edition of the Western Wayne News.