A brisk wind was blowing out toward left field during most of the UW baseball team’s home opener last night at Husky Ballpark, giving several balls that extra push they needed to fly away.

The Huskies got in on the action, and despite slugging two home runs, catcher Brett Wilcox, a junior, and the Dawgs (2-3) couldn’t pull off their first home win, falling to the Lewis-Clark State College Warriors 8-6.

Wilcox was the standout player for the Dawgs, going three-for-four with three RBIs and a walk, including his first two home runs as a Husky. His first home run came in the fifth inning and got UW back within two, 4-2, while his second big fly came in the eighth to spark a small rally and once again get the Dawgs within two, at 8-6. Ultimately, UW couldn’t make the final push.

UW coach Ken Knutson commented that Wilcox’s offensive performance wasn’t the only impressive thing to take away from the home loss.

“He had a great night,” Knutson said. “The thing I was most pleased with was the way he caught.”

Wilcox, who started the second game of a four-game series against UC Riverside last weekend, was a bit surprised by his power display.

“In [batting practice] I was working on a different kind of swing and loosened up out here in the game,” Wilcox said. “I felt good today.”

The Huskies didn’t falter on offense, scoring six runs on 10 hits while drawing nine walks. It was the Dawgs’ pitching that had trouble against the defending NAIA champion, LC State.

Sophomore right-handed pitcher Cam Nobles, who suffered a stress fracture in his pitching arm last season that limited his outings, started the game for the Huskies and had trouble finding the plate in the first inning. Later, Nobles settled down to pitch a solid four innings, giving up three hits, one earned run, and three walks on four strikeouts.

“[It was a case of] just getting the jitters out the first game,” Nobles said. “I tend to get a little amped up, but once I got that out of the way I settled in and started throwing some strikes and got hitters out.”

After Nobles, the Dawgs began to let up a bit. Redshirt freshman left-handed pitcher (LHP) Ben Guidos came in at the start of the fifth inning and promptly walked two batters. Two doubles later and the Warriors were ahead 4-1.

Junior LHP Tyler Cheney didn’t fare much better, giving up four runs on five hits in only 1 1/3 innings of work.

In the end, pitching wins ball games and tonight, the Dawgs didn’t come out and pitch.

“We hung around, battled back and had pretty good [at-bats],” Knutson said. “We’re going to try to go out and play better, and we have very good pitching but we didn’t do it tonight.”

The Huskies will get their chance when they travel to Stockton, Calif., to play the University of the Pacific this weekend for a three-game road series before returning home for 14 straight home games.

[Reach reporter Allen Wagner at sports@thedaily.washington.edu.]