Nine Wins Two, Loses One, Hits Well on Southern Tour

Baseball coach Norm Shepard took his varsity home to the Southland for its spring tour, won two out of three games with an increasing show of hitting power, and had "a right good vacation."

Balmy weather provided three warm workouts and three close games. The nine lost to the Quantico Marines, 7 to 4, but beat Richmond University, 7 to 5, and George Washington University, 12 to 7.

Captain George MacDonald's first hit of the season was a home run against Quantico on Monday. As catcher, he was the only starting holdover from last year's team, looking out on an all-new infield of John Simourian at first, Bob Hastings at second, Jim Murray at short, and Don Butters at third. The new outfield, from left to right, included Dick Hoffman, Dick Fisher, and Matt Bottsford.

Pitchers Get Poor Support

MacDonald's mates added five hits to his homer, but the support they gave hurlers Ken Rossano, Dom Repetto and a sharp Joe Bernstein was erratic. Having practiced outdoors only twice previously, the fielders had obvious difficulty in judging fly balls and lost them in the sun.

Against Richmond the next day, the team doubled its hit production to 12 and began to bunch them. Butters homered in the seventh to give the Crimson a 3-to-3 tie: in the eighth MacDonald singled and Bones MacKinney was given an infield hit when Richmond let his sacrifice roll. Fisher then walked, another base on balls, to Hastings forced in a run, and Bottsford singled home two more to win the game.

Andy Ward pitched the first five innings against Richmond, Bob Kessler finishing up.

Anderson Homers

The George Washington game on Thursday saw 15 Crimson hits, but the big one came off the bat of George Anderson. Pinch hitting in the ninth for Kessler, who followed Bernstein and Ward to the mound, with the score tied, 7 to 7, two men on and one man out, Anderson unloaded the third varsity homer in as many games for the winning runs.

Simourian, aside from sharp fielding around first base, led the varsity's batting attack with six hits on the trip, three against Richmond. Bottsford got three against George Washington and tied Murray with five for the trip. Butters hit the ball well and hard, but, like MacDonald, was confined to three safeties.