Southeastern Louisiana Stays Alive with 10-4 Win over Demons
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas - Southeastern Louisiana jumped out to an early 7-0 lead and cruised to a 10-4 victory over Northwestern State Thursday in an elimination game of the Southland Conference Baseball Tournament at Whataburger Field.
The Lions, who won for the 40th time this season (40-18), got on the board in the top of the first thanks to a three-run home run by Jeff Harkensee with no outs. Four more scored in the third thanks to a sacrifice fly by Josh Cryer, an RBI double by Brock Hebert, an infield RBI single by Trey Martin and an RBI single by Cass Hargis. Southeastern had six of its 14 hits in that inning, providing enough offense to back starter Tyler Watkins.
Watkins allowed three of his four runs in the third inning and another in the sixth. He tossed 125 pitches in seven innings and gave up eight hits while walking two and striking out five. He improved to 6-3 on the year. The loss went to Ryan Zimmerman, who fell to 6-5.
Cody Gougler led the Lions with a 3-for-5 day and scored twice. Hargis also had three hits in a 3-for-6 effort. Harkensee drove in four runs and scored twice. Hebert also added a pair of hits.
Northwestern (36-21) had nine hits in the game, including back-to-back doubles by Chase Lyles and Adam Roy that plated three in the bottom of the third. Roy drove in two in going 2-for-4. Lyles led the Demons with a 3-for-5 effort and scored twice. Northwestern committed three errors in its final game of the season.
Southeastern stays alive in the tournament and will meet the loser of this afternoon's game between Lamar and McNeese State Friday at 9 a.m., CDT.
Southeastern Louisiana coach Jay Artigues
On Tyler Watkins
"This is the one of the best hitting teams in the conference and Tyler Watkins was locating all of his pitches today which was important with how capable they are swinging the bat."
Building the lead then Northwestern State coming back to within three runs
"We knew due to their offense that seven runs wouldn't be enough and we had to keep scoring runs throughout against them. Our guys did a good job adding on late in the game then stopping them late with Stefan Lopez came in and making big pitches,"
Southeastern Louisiana outfielder Jeff Harkensee
On the homerun early in the game
"We wanted to score early and had no problem playing in the early game. We just tried to have fun by swinging the bat. I was just trying to drive the run home from third but the ball cleared the fence. Staying aggressive early is what we wanted to do after the tough loss yesterday and we did a good job of that,"
Approach for the rest of the tournament
"Taking it one game at especially since we know that we can't win the tournament tomorrow and will have to win twice tomorrow but we just need to take it one game at a time and see how it goes."
Northwestern State Coach: J.P. Davis
"Our inability to stay out of the big inning lead to our demise today, also on the mound we weren't competitive either."
On Southeastern scoring three in the top of the eighth then the Demons leaving the bases loaded in the bottom half
"Once we got it to 7-4 I felt good about our chances especially when we put Chad Sheppard into the game, unfortunately he worked behind a lot and in the middle of the plate which has happened a lot this tournament. Getting punched out twice then popping up is not what you need to do when you have the opportunity with runners on."