Texas-San Antonio Wins BellSouth SLC Tournament
May 28, 2005
NATCHITOCHES, La. -
Same field, same result. Eleven years after winning the Southland Conference Tournament at Brown-Stroud Field here, the University of Texas at San Antonio baseball team completed the feat again on Saturday, scoring a 4-1 win over second-seeded Lamar to put the finishing touches on a 4-0 mark in the 2005 BellSouth Conference tournament. The Roadrunners now advance to an NCAA regional for the first time since 1994.
UTSA (27-32), which came all the way back from being 0-11 at one point this year, will find out on Monday where and when it will play in the NCAA regionals. Lamar fell to 38-22.
Senior pitcher Aaron Rodriguez came back after pitching on Wednesday to toss a four-hitter against one of the top hitting clubs in the league. Rodriguez, was named all-tournament, threw exactly 100 pitches and gave just one run in the sixth inning to improve to 8-6 on the season as the Roadrunners scored all four of their runs unearned.
"We've been working five years for this moment," said head coach Sherman Corbett. "I couldn't be prouder of this team. I told them that they would have to do it on the field and that's exactly what they did. We had a lot of people step up and contribute this week."
Meanwhile, at the plate, junior Ryan Crew continued his torrid pace at the plate by going 2-for-4 with three RBIs. Crew was named the tournament's MVP after hitting 9-for-18 (.500) in the four games. UTSA, which had six hits, also got safeties from Sean Danielson, Chris Lewis, Eric Moreno and Ryan Saltzgaber.
J.R. Voyles, Lee Todesco, Danielson, Stephen Holdren and Rodriguez all earned all-tournament honors.
The Roadrunners jumped on the board in the first inning with a run. Sean Danielson led off with an infield single and was forced out at second Ryan Crew's fielder's choice. The throw from second to first, however, eluded the Lamar first baseman, which allowed Crew to go to second. Stephen Holdren then beat out an infield single to move Crew to third. Chris Lewis then drilled a solid single to center field to plate Crew with the first run.
UTSA added a tally in the sixth inning as J.R. Voyles reached on a throwing error and came all away around to score on Crew's double to deep left centerfield.
The Cardinals trimmed the advantage to 2-1 in the bottom of the sixth. Chase Richards led off with a double. Rodriguez then coaxed three consecutive ground outs, but Richards scored on Colt Crawford's grounder to second.
The Roadrunners tacked on two more runs in the seventh - both unearned - to extend the lead to 4-1. Delage got two ground outs to start the inning and struck out Ryan Saltzgaber. However, Saltzgaber, playing his first game in the tournament after battling an infection all week, reached first on a passed ball to extend the frame. Two consecutive walks to Danielson and Holdren loaded the bases for Crew. The Roadrunners' shortstop greeted relief pitcher Allen Harrington with a two-out, two-run single to left field and picked up his second third RBI's of the day.