BATON ROUGE, La. – Despite a valiant comeback effort, Southeastern Louisiana dropped its first meeting against Houston, 9-5, Sunday at Alex Box Stadium, bringing the Lions season to an end.
Southeastern (38-25), down 9-2 entering the eighth, rallied for three runs in its final two at bats, but came up short in the end against the Cougars (46-16).
“I couldn’t be any more proud of this group of guys,” Riser said. “If you look at the adversity we faced throughout the year, we started out 9-8, the worst we’ve had since I’ve been there. You know we had a six-game losing streak, the longest losing streak we’ve had since 2007.
“At the end of the day, when the story was at this standpoint – at the end – it’s one of the greatest years in Southeastern history. I couldn’t be any more proud of the guys to face the adversity and challenges that they did. You saw that we have a tough bunch of kids. They battled to the last pitch, all the way through the ninth inning. It obviously didn’t end the way we wanted, but I couldn’t be any more proud of our guys.”
Houston scored seven runs in the first two innings, all unearned, as the Lions committed five errors. The big inning for the Cougars was a 10-batter second inning that led to six, two-out runs.
“We’ve been playing good baseball for a couple of weeks,” Riser said. “Again, it was an inning that got away from us. Unfortunately, you look back it for the tournament, you can look at two innings that really kind of hampered us a little bit – the eighth inning against LSU and the second inning today with Houston. But that’s baseball. It happens and next week we talk about – we harp on the fundamentals of baseball and that’s why. To be honest with you, more came from the loss than the win. That’s why you just keep battling to the last pitch.”
Southeastern's rally started with back-to-back one-out doubles by Brett Hoffman and Daniel Midyett in the eighth inning. Kennon Menard drove both in with a two-out single up the middle.
Pinch-hitter Gabe Woods appeared to hit the ball out of the ballpark leading off the ninth, but the umpires ruled the ball hit off the wall for a double. Jacob Seward followed with a single to left, putting runners on the corners. Jameson Fisher drove in Woods with a double to left-center field, energizing the loud Southeastern fan base.
“We've had awesome support,” Riser said. “Honestly the year that Southeastern athletics has had – it’s the most championships we’ve had I think in a year for the entire athletic program. We had five total; I think before that was three. You saw the support. It was so neat to run out of that third base box and hear that crowd – you know a couple thousand fans – out there supporting us no matter what. They had our back the whole time. Honestly even after the second inning, we get back in there and score a couple of runs. They’re right back there. They’re cheering; they’re just so proud of our guys. I couldn’t ask for a better home crowd.”
The Lions pounded out 16 hits in the game with six players recording multi-hit performances. Kyle Cedotal, Fisher, Hoffman, Sam Roberson and Seward each picked up multiple hits in the game.
Houston starter Aaron Garza (9-4) earned the win while Sean Kennel (5-4) was the hard-luck loser for the Lions.