Morehead City, NC- The Morehead City Fish Tacos dropped their home opener in a 1-0 loss to Wilmington. Tom Reisinger pitched a scintillating game for the Sharks, starting and going three innings with four strikeouts and a walk. Nick McCollum matched Reisinger with a five inning outing, giving up one run. 

McCollum gave up singles in each of his five frames, but limited the damage to only one run, as his biggest threat came from a leadoff single off the bat of shortstop Cam Hassert to begin the second. A fielding error on Fish Tacos’ shortstop Blake Falor allowed Kyle Smith to reach to put two runners on for the Sharks with no outs. The Fish Taco defense would wriggle out of the threat, as a McCollum strikeout and a line out double-play to second baseman Trent Youngblood ended the inning. 

The lone offense in the game would come in the third, as Sharks center fielder Drew Sturgeon walked and advanced to second on a wild pitch. Carson Villalta singled him in to give the Sharks a 1-0 lead that they would hold for the rest of the game. 

Wilmington would threaten again in the fifth inning, but a slick double play turned up the middle by Youngblood and Falor to first baseman Ryan Bellamy would do the trick to get the Fish Tacos out of the jam 

Fish Tacos pitcher Joe Miceli would enter into trouble when he came out of the pen in the sixth and walked Carson Villalta, and hit Cam Burgess with a pitch in succession before striking out the side to quell the threat. 

The bottom of the sixth looked promising for the Fish Tacos, as Blake Falor walked and Ryan Bellamy walked to start the inning. Sharks pitcher Andy Cook then induced two pop outs and a ground out to end the frame. 

The Sharks looked to push another run across in the top of the eighth with two on and one out, but Jacob Kroeger would strike out Cam Hassert, hit Kyle Smith to load the bases, and strike out Stephen DiTomaso to end the inning.

Down one in the bottom of the ninth, the Fish Tacos looked to rally with a walk-off win. Phillip Bernstein gave the crowd something to cheer for when he singled to lead off the inning, but that’s all the offense could muster, as Andrew Cantwell sat down the next three batters in order to end the game. 

With the loss, the Marlins drop to 1-2 (0-1 as the Fish Tacos) and the Sharks improve to 3-1. 

The Marlins will battle the Wake Forest Fungo from Big Rock Stadium on Wednesday. First pitch comes your way at 7PM.