Sentinel photo by MIKE GOSS Juniata's Jack Greenholt scoops the ball out of the dirt as Halifax's Matt Kocher steals third base.

MIFFLINTOWN — The Juniata baseball team lost a high-scoring affair Friday against Halifax (11-0), 17-8.

The Indians abandoned their starting pitcher plan early on in the game when Caleb Auker gave up two earned runs. He was replaced by Daylyn Kennedy who calmed down the Wildcat offense and left the top of the first inning with a 3-0 deficit.

Still, Kennedy and the Juniata defense couldn’t keep Halifax’s hitting down for the rest of the game.

“I thought defensively we played a good game,” Juniata coach Aaron Geedey said. “They just hit some solid hits. We had a couple mistakes, but overall they just hit the ball hard and got hits. The pitching did well, threw strikes. The bats came around tonight. Overall, I’m pleased with how they did.”

The Indians were able to hit the ball well though, scoring two runs in the first inning to keep them in the game early. Then, in the second inning, four more runs came across the plate to again cut the deficit to one run.

Hayden Burd hit a two-RBI single and Quentin Houtz had two RBIs on a sacrifice bunt to make it 7-6 going into the third. Burd would finish 2-for-3.

Other strong performances from the Indians included Kennedy going 3-for-4 with two doubles and Cam Bargo went 2-for-4.

“That is the kinda hitting we need,” Geedey said. “If we would have done that earlier in the season our record wouldn’t look the way it has. Just got to get the bats rolling, hopefully this jumpstarts them and the bats just keep rolling from here.”

It was 13-8 going into the seventh inning, and the Wildcats scored four more runs to make it 17-8.

Overall, a long game that looked a little worse on paper than how it looked on the field. “We gave some runs up in the last inning,” Geedey added. “Overall, they battled, they’d score and we would score a couple runs.”

Juniata (1-8) will look to carry their hitting performance into their road game at Lewisburg at 11 a.m. on Saturday.