The Hounds opened the season with a bang at Winnemac on Saturday, defeating the Browns 11-1

Special guest and forever-Hound TJ Rinaldi (#1) plus a peanut gallery of fans celebrating Anne O’Neill Riggenbach’s 30th+1 birthday were treated to a fun afternoon of baseball, with TJ dutifully coaching the bases and the birthday contingent yelling “Tim! What did you do?” and cheering when the question was answered. Buoyed by the celebration (and Sox game hangover), Tim “Not Everyone Can Be Perfect” Riggenbach (#8, ) held the Browns to 1 run and 3 hits over 6 innings, striking out 11. Brian Lehman (#2, SS/P) closed out the game in the 7th without allowing a run.

Matt Burch (#6, 1B) secured the Hounds’ first RBI of 2021 in the first inning, scoring Lehman on a groundout. In the third, the Hounds tacked on two. Arron Kruse (#11, 3B), composing himself after an out of the batter’s box misstep, reached first for an RBI single, scoring fellow Charlie Lehman who had reached on a double. Rookie Hound Greg Sells (#19, 2B) also contributed with an RBI single. The Browns scored their only run of the day in the fourth inning as a Browns runner worked his way around the bases on passed balls, the last of which culminated in a foot race for home plate, but the Hounds catcher, Tony Correa (#13), was unable to come up with the tag. The game was broken open in the 6th inning on doubles by Correa and Phil Zelenka (#21, LF), a triple blasted to center by Riggenbach, and a home run cranked to the football field by new Hound Brent Fukushima (#27, 22). Alec Reinke (#14, LF) and off-season acquisition Brandon Jessee (#3, CF), not to be left out, each tallied an RBI of their own.

Post game, the Hounds celebrated alongside the Electrons at shared sponsor K’s Dugout.

The Hounds will take a 1-0 record to Walther Lutheran Academy on Sunday in a context against the Orioles.