The Aquinas baseball team kicked off the 2020 season in Johnson City, Tenn. on Saturday (Feb. 8) at the Clash of Conferences Tournament and scored three times in the fifth inning to knock off (RV) Rio Grande by a 6-3 score. In a game that was delayed at the start because of weather and cancelled a second game later the same night, AQ plated six runs on only five hits and received strong pitching to move to 1-0 on the year. 
 
The Saints scored first and last in Saturday's opener against a Rio Grande (Ohio) team that was listed in the Receiving Votes category of the NAIA Top-25 Preseason Poll. With the win, Aquinas is 1-0, while the Red Storm fall to 0-5.
 
AQ held leads of 2-0 and 3-1 before the Red Storm tied the score at 3-3 in the fifth inning. The Saints plated the final three runs of the game and sealed the win with three pitchers allowing just six hits and striking out 15 batters in the victory.
 
Starter Travis Keys logged the first two innings of the new season and gave up one run on one hit. While he walked four batters, the junior lefty struck out six. He was replaced by Hunter Morrison, as the sophomore righty scattered five hits and two runs over the next three innings. He did not issue a walk and fanned four Red Storm hitters.
 
Morrison earned the win, but Tomoya Nakagawa locked up the victory with two perfect innings of relief. The senior southpaw, Nakagawa fanned the first two batters of the sixth before a groundout ended the frame. He struck out all three batters in the seventh inning to earn the save, tallying four swinging K's in his five-strikeout appearance. 
 
The Saints scored twice in the first, as Michael Maher doubled to left center in his first at-bat for AQ, driving in Brady Keur (leadoff single) and Brady Paganelli (hit by pitch). It was 2-1 in the third when Nick Brzezinski recorded an RBI groundout to again score Keur, who reached on a leadoff walk. 
 
Trailing 3-1, Rio Grande scored once in the fourth and fifth frames to knot the score at 3-all. Aquinas quickly answered in the home half of the fifth with three runs on three hits. Jake Augustyn led off with a double and scored the eventual game-winning run on a Rio Grande wild pitch. 
 
AQ tacked on some insurance runs with Keur (bunt single) and Paganelli (walk) again crossing the plate, this time on a two-run double off the bat of Nathan Hughes. The 6-3 lead would be more than enough for the Saints, as Nakagawa closed the door on the Red Storm in their final two at-bats.
 
Keur finished 2-for-3 and scored three times, while Paganelli was officially 0-for-1, but scored twice. Hughes and Maher each collected two ribbies with their timely doubles. Augustyn was 1-for-3 with a run scored.
 
The Saints' second game of the night against Milligan was cancelled and will not be made up. AQ faces Thomas More at 9:00 a.m. on Sunday (Feb. 9), followed by a rematch with Rio Grande, scheduled for noon.