SHENANDOAH JUNCTION — The low-hit, few runs pitching of Daquon Shipe, Ryan Hefner and Caleb Fletcher was enough to guide youngish Jefferson to a 3-2 season-opening baseball win over Frankfort last Thursday at weather-favored Sager Field.

The Jefferson pitching threesome limited visiting Frankfort to just five singles while only walking two and hitting one batter. Frankfort batters went down on strikes some eight times against the combined three-man pitching effort.

Neither team could manage an extra base hit, but the Cougars had 11 baserunners against the three pitchers the Falcons tried.

After two scoreless innings, the Cougars scored a run in the third inning when Riley Morgan’s RBI single plated Ryan Hefner who had reached safely when his infield grounder hit base runner Sam Hefner.

In the next inning Cole Lewis walked, advanced on a wild pitch and on to third on an infielder error before scoring on an infield out by Josh Cienfuegos.

Shipe had blanked the visitors on one hit in his three innings of starting pitching. He was replaced by Ryan Hefner, who fanned two in his first inning of work before being solved for two game-tying runs in the fifth where Frankfort had three hits, including Blake Jacobs’ two-RBI single that came with two outs.

Tied at 2-2 the low-scoring affair rode into Jefferson’s half of the sixth.

Lewis, who was 2-for-2 and reached bases safely in all three of his plate appearances, led off the sixth with a single to right field. He went to second on a passed ball and on to third on Cienfuegos’ pop fly single to shallow right.

With runners on first and third and only one out, the Falcons tried to figure if Jefferson would put a runner in motion.

However, with pitcher Rhett Sensabaugh on the rubber he started his windup but then stopped, causing a balk to be called and Lewis trotting home from third with the go-ahead run. Jefferson had gotten a 3-2 lead . . . and had hard-throwing Caleb Flether on for his second pitching inning.

Flether had already struck out two batters in the sixth and now had a lead to protect.

He fanned the lead-off batter in the seventh and finished with a 1-2-3 inning, when a Falcon grounded out harmlessly to third and the game’s final batter lined out to left.

Shipe struck out three, Hefner fanned two and then Flether struck out three in his two innings of tidy work.

Lewis was the only player on either team who had two hits.

Getting ahead in the count, staying ahead of the batters and throwing strikes with both their fastballs and breaking pitches made Jefferson’s three pitchers mostly effective on the calm and clear day.

And Jefferson opened its 2023 season on a pitcher-rich evening that had it rewarded with a one-run win.