SALISBURY, Md. - Spring has sprung at Shenandoah University as the baseball team took to the diamond and narrowly lost its season opening game, 4-3, at Salisbury Saturday afternoon.

The Hornets (0-1) drew first blood in the top of the fifth inning with a pair of unearned runs, but the Sea Gulls (1-0) took advantage of a pair of SU errors in the latter side of the inning to post a trio of unearned runs of their own.

Senior J.R. Creamer (Lovettsville, Va./Loudoun Valley) pitched extremely well in his 2004 debut as he went six strong innings giving up seven hits and three runs; none of which were earned. Creamer was relieved by Gerry Sasse (Philadelphia, Penn./Penn Charter) at the onset of the seventh frame, and Sasse allowed only two hits in his two innings but one was a costly double to left that scored a Sea Gulls base runner from first, giving the hosts a 4-2 lead.

The Shenandoah bats found some resilience in the top of the eighth when Mike Arvizo (Palmdale, Calif./Little Rock AVC) launched a sacrifice fly ball that scored leadoff hitter David Jenkins (Front Royal, Va./Bridgewater Col.) to cut the deficit to 4-3.

A complete boxscore may be found at: http://www.su.edu/athletics/bb/2004/022104.htm

The Hornets will now travel down to Lynchburg College to face the other Hornets at 2:00 Sunday afternoon.