Seymour’s baseball team scored three runs each in the first and second innings and went on to an 8-1 win over Trinity Lutheran on Thursday afternoon at Alf Snyder Field in the season-opener for both teams.

The Owls sent eight batters to the plate in each of the first two innings in taking a 6-0 lead.

R.J. Kleber led off the first inning being hit by pitch. Takumi Nishiwaki beat out an infield single, and an error allowed the runners to advance. Matthew Moore singled, and the Owls used two wild pitches and a stolen base to take a 3-0 lead.

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With two outs and nobody on base in the second inning, the Owls came up with back-to-back-to-back doubles by Kleber, Nishiwaki and Moore to score two runs. Kleber’s hit went into left-center field and Cougars left fielder Hunter Morgan got his glove on the ball and couldn’t hold on. Moore hit a fly ball that center field Denver Shelley lost in the sun. Devin Hill singled to drive in Moore.

The Cougars scored their run in the bottom of the second when Morgan led off with a walk. Even Hunt was hit by a pitch, and Shelley walked to load the bases. Tyler Goecker then hit into a fielder’s choice with Morgan scoring.

Moore led off the top of the fourth with a double and came home on Hill’s home run over the fence in right-center field.

The Owls collected 10 hits off of two Trinity pitchers, but coach Jeremy Richey was not pleased with the Owls’ patience at the plate. He also said the pitchers gave up too many walks.

“It’s good to be out here, but I’m disappointed in the way that we played,” Richey said. “We’ve got to be a lot better than we were tonight. The two things that stood out was we walked too many people and at the plate we just weren’t very good.

“You look at the scoreboard with 10 hits and eight runs, and it looks like a great night. However, we were as bad as we’ve been over the last few years offensively. Four guys had 10 hits, so we had five guys that did nothing. We struck out way too many times (11).”

He said the game took too much time to play.

“We’ve got to be better, and I think part of that was the flow took a long time,” Richey said as the first two innings took an hour and 10 minutes to play. “It was really slow early, and it was tight, and I think that affected the pitchers on both teams. I’m assuming the pitchers on both teams are better than what we saw tonight just because I think that got to the guys early, and it kind of changed the game, and we just didn’t get in the flow.

“Defensively, we made all the plays we needed to make (no errors). We’ve got to be better throwing strikes, and we’ve got to be a whole lot better at the plate because we’re going to see some pretty good arms, and a lot of our guys did not compete at the plate.”

Moore finished with three hits, three runs and two RBI, Hill had three hits and three RBI and Kleber and Nishiwaki both had two hits and two runs.

Four Seymour pitchers combined to allow five hits, strike out 12 and walk six.

Goecker had two hits, one RBI and was on base four times with a walk and a fielder’s choice.

Jack Marksberry, Noah Voelker and Josh Rowe had the other three Trinity hits.

Trinity pitchers combined for 11 strikeouts and five walks.

Cougars coach Ben Kleber said he thought the pitchers did a good job of throwing strikes.

“The strike zone was kind of changing throughout the game,” Kleber said. “That is something we just have to deal with. I thought they did a good job of pitching through some adversity. I think they had six earned runs, and the play where the umpires changed the call, they scored two runs after that, so it could have been a 4-1 ballgame.

“We’re right where we want to be. We had a lot of innings where we had guys on second and third. We’ve just got to get timely hits. Our hitters are behind. We haven’t been able to be outside much yet.”

Kleber likes the direction his team is heading.

“Overall, when it comes to the attitude we’re trying to get here, I was happy,” he said. “I’m very happy with the way we performed and didn’t let anything affect us. We’ve got a lot of work to do. We’ve got four guys back that played last year, so that gives you nine new guys. So we’re doing a lot of teaching right now, and that’s hard in a game when everything is going so fast.

“(Seymour) has a good ball club. Our pitchers kept them off-balance. If we make a couple plays here and there, it could have been a completely different ballgame.”

The Cougars (0-1) are scheduled to host Edinburgh today at 5 p.m., and the Owls (1-0) are scheduled to host Lanesville at 11 a.m. Saturday.