Long Sets School Strikeout Record as UT Arlington Downs Stephen F. Austin, 7-4
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas ? UT Arlington starting pitcher Nathan Long struck out eight batters to help the Mavericks get past Stephen F. Austin, 7-4, in an elimination game of the Southland Conference Tournament Thursday at Whataburger Field.
Long allowed three runs on eight hits in his seven-inning outing to run his season strikeout total to 114 to set the UTA school record. He was backed up by his offense.
The fifth-seeded Mavericks (30-25) had 12 hits, including 10 from the third through seventh hitters of the order. Matt Otteman was 2-for-3 and drove in three RBI thanks to a two-run home run in the fifth inning that gave UT Arlington a 4-1 lead. He also drove in a run in the eighth.
Eighth-seeded Stephen F. Austin, which managed 11 hits of its own, scored twice in the bottom of the fifth to pull within a 4-3 score, but gave up runs in the sixth, eighth and ninth innings. The Lumberjacks added a solo run in the eighth to make it a 6-4 game, but Ryan Davis flied out to right to score Andrew Kainer with the sacrifice for the eventual margin of victory.
While five Mavericks had two hits apiece, two Lumberjacks (23-32) went 3-for-5, including Tanner Hines and Brian Ferguson, who drove in two.
Long improved to 6-4 with the victory and Adam Boydston pitched the final 1 1/3 innings for his ninth save. Jared West was tagged with the loss to slip to 4-3.
Two winner’s bracket games are still on the schedule for Thursday night. UTSA and Sam Houston State play the first game and Texas State and Lamar will follow.
Live stats for all tournament action is available at www.southland.org, which also features SLC NOW, the conference’s streaming video channel.
UT Arlington Head Coach Darin Thomas
“It was a good win. We talked after the game last night about how disappointed we were. One win can get you some momentum and get you to Friday. This is the toughest game in the tournament, anytime you lose the first game. The next game is the toughest one.”
“We haven’t had much success against SFA the past couple of years, but we had one of our best pitchers going. He has kind of carried us all year and he did an outstanding job, getting us into the eighth with a lead. We scored just enough, it didn’t really matter how we won, we just needed to win.”
“I thought we faced good arms again today, their guys out of the bullpen have been good all year. Those guys have carried them all year long, so I thought it was important that we added to the lead.”
“We have been searching for somebody to hit behind out three .400 hitters, and over the last month Mitch Putman has been doing a good job for us getting some hits in that spot.”
UT Arlington Outfielder Matt Otteman
“It was a great win for our team today. It takes a bunch of pressure off of us. We can’t go two and out anymore. We have one under our belts and can come out and have some fun tomorrow. It felt great to beat SFA finally after struggling against them. It felt good to come out and play a good game all around against them and to come out on top.”
“Yesterday just being the first game, we were all amped up and ready to play. Today we just came out and played relaxed and made some adjustments during the game. We made good adjustments as a team, not just individually. We just took some good swings on some balls and they landed in our favor today.”
On two-run home run in fifth inning
“The pitcher threw me a curveball in that he hung over the plate a little bit. I put a good swing on it and was able to get it in the air.”
UT Arlington Pitcher Nathan Long
“I threw well. I was locating a lot of my pitches. I got in a lot of jams today, gave up several base hits and my defense really helped me out. I was locating everything and came out on top because my offense scored a lot of runs for me.”
On breaking UT Arlington single-season strikeout record with 114 strikeouts
“That’s pretty cool, I never considered myself a strikeout pitcher but this year I put a couple of extra pitches in my repertoire. There have been a lot of really good pitchers to come through here, so it is pretty cool for me.”
“That is definitely our goal, to play twice tomorrow. Our offense got going today, once they get going, it’s hard to stop them. We’ll be ready to play two.”
Stephen F. Austin Head Coach Johnny Cardenas
“We had a bunch of kids that over the last four years have been through a lot of adversity. They had a tough time of rebuilding the program and coaching changes. I couldn’t be any more happy to be the head coach of the SFA baseball team.”
“Nathan Long gave up the early run to us, and to his credit, he settled in and started throwing us more off speed pitches. He did a good job of keeping our hitters off balance. Their guy pitched pretty good.”
“It is a big thing, as you play a team that many times, you become familiar with them. Somebody asked me last night who I would rather play, and I said Lamar. Not because I thought we would beat Lamar, but there is not as much familiarity with them as there was with UT Arlington.”
Stephen F. Austin Outfielder Zach Gardner
“That’s kind of been a theme in the games we struggled in this year, we didn’t come up with the big hit and that happened again today. As coach said, Long pitched a great game and he did a great job of keeping us off balance.”
“I can’t believe it’s already been four years, it went like that and I really enjoyed it. I got to know the coaches and coach Cardenas. It was a great group of guys this year and I am going to miss them.”