Walk-off Single Puts Southeastern Louisiana in Southland Title Game
ESPN3 REPLAY
SAN MARCOS, Texas - Southeastern Louisiana's Ladd Rhodes delivered
a game-winning RBI single with the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of
the ninth inning to propel the Lions to an dramatic 5-4 victory over Stephen F.
Austin in the 2012 Southland Conference Baseball Tournament Saturday at Bobcat
Ballpark.
The win sent No. 2-seeded Southeastern (39-20) to its first-ever tournament
championship game appearance where it will face No. 4 UT Arlington (35-23) at
5:05 p.m.
Rhodes capped off a 4-for-5 day at the plate as his hit off SFA
reliever Justin Choate went over the head of right-fielder Ricardo Sanchez and
allowing Brock Hebert to score the game-winning run.
Southeastern opened the inning when Ben Hernandez hit a one-out
single through the left side and moved to second when Hebert singled to left.
With runners on first and second, Jonathan Pace then hit a
grounder to SFA third basemen Bryce Cummings, whose throw to second appeared to
go into right field. Instead, the throw hit Hebert in the batting helmet,
ricocheted to SFA shortstop Hunter Dozier and he fired a strike to the plate as
Hernandez attempted to score from second.
After Cody Gougler drew a walk to load the bases, Rhodes delivered
his game-winning hit to seal the win over SFA (26-33), in a series where four
of the five games were decided by one run.
Stefan Lopez (2-1) earned the victory for Southeastern after
tossing two scoreless innings with a strikeout. The junior got out of a jam in
the top of the ninth inning when Freddy Villalobos drew a leadoff walked and
moved to second when Sanchez's attempted sacrifice bunt popped out of the glove
of a diving Lopez, putting two runners on base with no outs.
Cummings moved both runners into scoring position on a sacrifice
bunt before Lopez fanned pinch-hitter Jordan Lenaburg and getting a diving
catch from Hernandez in foul territory to retire Zach Benson.
Southeastern took an early 1-0 lead in the first inning when
Hebert hit an RBI single to score Harry Slade. The Lions took a 2-1 lead in the
second after Brett Hoffman's RBI grounder scored Rhodes.
Hoffman added another RBI in the fourth inning when his grounder
scored Gougler to tie the game before Alex Marse doubled down the left-field
line to drive in Rhodes and give Southeastern a 4-3 lead.
SFA got solo home runs from Max Lamantia and Villalobos before a
solo home run by Dozier tied the game at 4-4 in the fifth inning.
Kevin Bishop (0-1) took the loss for SFA after pitching 0.2
innings in relief. Dozier and Villalobos had two hits each for SFA, which
collected 10 hits off three Southeastern pitchers - but just one after a
one-out single by Loveless in the fifth inning.
Hernandez, Hebert and Marse had two hits each for Southeastern,
which finished with 11 hits and improved to 12-6 in one-run games.