Baseball: May 2 Scoreboard
UIW 8, Central Arkansas 7 (10)
Southeastern Louisiana 5, Lamar 2
Nicholls 4, Houston Baptist 3
McNeese State 6, Stephen F. Austin 3
Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 4, Sam Houston State 2
Abilene Christian 7, New Orleans 3
Northwestern State 8, Notre Dame 2
UIW 8, Central Arkansas 7 (10)
Recap to follow.
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Southeastern Louisiana 5, Lamar 2
HAMMOND, La. – Southeastern Louisiana picked up its 10th-consecutive Southland Conference win Saturday, defeating Lamar, 5-2, at Pat Kenelly Diamond at Almuni Field.
The first-place Lions (35-13, 19-4 Southland) moved three games up on Northwestern State, which currently sits in second place. Lamar (19-27, 8-15 Southland) fell three games behind Texas A&M-Corpus Christi for the eighth and final spot in the upcoming conference tournament.
Southeastern struck for four runs early, getting to Cardinals' starting pitcher Collin Chapman (0-1) in the second inning.
With one out, Chapman walked Kennon Menard and Julian Service back-to-back before Chris Eades popped a high fly ball down the right-field line. Lamar right fielder C.J. Moore lost the ball in the sun and it dropped for a single, loading the bases.
Ryan Byers followed with a single through the right side, driving in Menard with the first run of the game. Jacob Seward grounded back to the mound, but Chapman tossed to first base for the out and allowed Service to score.
Carson Crites drove in both Eades and Byers, knocking his second triple of the season into the gap in right-center.
Jake Johnson (9-1) was in command early for the Lions on the mound, scattering two hits through the first six innings. The junior right-hander finished one-out shy of his second complete game of the season.
The Cardinals touched Johnson for a run on a sacrifice fly in the seventh, snapping a 16.2 inning scoreless streak by Southeastern pitching to open the series.
In the eighth, the Lions got the run back. Brett Hoffman singled through the right side off left-handed reliever Brandon Kirkham. Menard followed and greeted new reliever Kyle Leggett with a single to right-center, but he was thrown out trying to stretch it into a double when Moore bobbled the ball in the outfield. Service ripped a single through the left side of a drawn-in infield to plate Hoffman.
Lamar picked up its second and final run of the game in the ninth with three singles.
Freshman Mac Sceroler, a right-hander from Denham Springs, Louisiana, fanned Kevin Santana for the game's final out and earned his sixth save of the season.
Johnson, who fanned six and did not walk a batter, earned the win. Chapman, the first of six Lamar pitchers, suffered the loss.
Crites (2-for-4) and Hoffman (2-for-4) led the Lions at the plate.
Seward (0-for-4), who drew an intentional walk in his final plate appearance, had his school-record 24-game hitting streak snapped, but kept his 36-game reached-base streak intact.
Southpaw Kyle Cedotal (6-2, 1.82), a junior from Denham Springs, draws the starting nod for Southeastern in Sunday's 1 p.m. series finale against Cardinal right-hander Eric Foshee (2-5, 6.68).
Sunday is Academy Family Day. A bounce house inflatable will be set up outside of left field for all of the smaller Southeastern fans along with family-friendly promotions going on throughout the game.
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Nicholls 4, Houston Baptist 3
Recap to follow.
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McNeese State 6, Stephen F. Austin 3
LAKE CHARLES, La. – Senior Lucas Quary showcased one of the best performances of his career Saturday afternoon as the all-around athlete knocked in a run that would help launch a late-game collective effort from the McNeese State offense and also worked shutout innings on the mound to lead the Pokes to a series-clinching 6-3 victory over Stephen F. Austin at Cowboy Diamond.
Quary (2-0) picked up his second win in the last three games after having tossed 3.2 shutout innings and while also having prevented any SFA hits. Despite walking two batters late in the outing, Quary received help from the Cowboy bullpen to prevent a run from scoring and hanging on for the win.
With the victory, McNeese (27-20, 16-10 SLC) clinched a spot in the 2015 Southland Conference Baseball Tournament set for May 20-23 at Constellation Field in Sugar Land, Texas. For the first time since 2006, the Cowboys will finish the season having won every conference series at Cowboy Diamond.
The Pokes have captured 20 victories at home this season, the most within the confines of Cowboy Diamond since 2011. It was also the first time in over a decade that McNeese scored 20 or more home wins in a single year.
The Cowboys jumped out to an early two run lead in the first inning as junior Connor Crane launched his eighth homer of the season that scored senior Connor Lloyd, who had doubled the play before, to get ahead of the Jacks.
SFA responded with three runs through the next four innings to take a 3-2 lead.
At the plate, Quary was just as effective with a fifth-inning solo homer over the left field wall that knotted the ballgame up at three runs for each team. The tater was Quary’s seventh this season.
From there it was all Cowboys as senior Andrew Guillotte stole second base and swiped third before a fielding error allowed him to scrape across the home dish for the go-ahead run. McNeese tacked on a pair of insurance runs in the final inning following RBI-doubles from Guillotte and sophomore Matt Gallier.
Senior Cory LaPeze picked up his fourth save of the season after entering the game with one out left and struck out the last batter to help propel his team into postseason play. Reliever Tyler Erickson took to the mound early in the inning and retired the first two batters.
Guillotte, a finalist for the Senior CLASS Award, turned in excellent performance with two hits, an RBI, a run scored and two stolen bases in the contest. He is now stands just two steals away from tying Cowboy alumni Jace Peterson for the McNeese all-time stolen bases record.
Lloyd (2-for-4, one run scored) and junior Lewis Guilbeau (2-for-3, one walk, one run scored) each collected multiple-hit performances while four total McNeese batters knocked in at least one run in the contest.
The Pokes will be back in action tomorrow as they look for the series sweep against Stephen F. Austin. First pitch for the series finale is set for a 1 o’clock start.
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Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 4, Sam Houston State 2
HUNTSVILLE, Texas - Jacob Dorris pitched the final one and a third innings to shut the door on the Bearkats as the Islanders baseball team picked up a 4-2 win over Sam Houston State Saturday at Don Sanders Stadium.
The Bearkats (25-23, 14-9 SLC) loaded the bases in the bottom of the ninth with Colt Atwood at the plate. But Dorris would pick up his eighth save of the year, striking out Atwood to end the game.
Leading the charge for the Islanders (21-22, 11-12 SLC) was senior first baseman Frankie Salas. Salas went 1-for-3 on the day with two RBI as well as a sacrifice bunt that scored a run in the eighth. Zacarias Hardy also picked up an RBI off a sacrifice fly.
For the second straight game, Sam Houston State struck first with a run in the opening inning, but it didn't faze starting pitcher Trevor Belicek as the senior went a strong seven and two-third innings to pick up win number eight of the year. Belicek, a Uvalde, Texas product struck out five and allowed only six hits in the outing.
After a one-out single by Jordan Lee, a wild pitch and a walk by Kyle Danford, the Islanders scored their first run of the ballgame in the fourth. A perfectly executed double steal between Danford and Lee caught the Bearkats off guard and by the time the first baseman knew what was happening, it was too late as Lee slid in under the tag.
The team's four stolen bases on the day were the most since April 11, when the Islanders swiped four against Abilene Christian.
Salas put the Islanders on top in the fourth on a single to left that allowed Danford to score from second.
A&M-Corpus Christi shut down the Bearkats twice on the day after the home team loaded the bases. In the third, SHSU loaded the bases with no outs before Belicek induced a flyout to right field that was caught by Danford who threw a bullet to home plate to get the Ryan Farney for the double play. Belicek then struck out Jake MacWilliams to close out the inning.
Neither team was able to pick up an extra-base hit in the contest. The Islanders have one extra-base hit in its last five games.
Logan Boyd took the loss for Sam Houston State, falling to 5-4 on the season.
The Islanders and Bearkats will continue play Sunday at 1 p.m. at Don Sanders Stadium. Sophomore Devin Skapura will take the mound in the rubber game of the series.
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Abilene Christian 7, New Orleans 3
NEW ORLEANS, La. -- ACU starting pitcher Thomas Altimont threw seven shutout innings Saturday afternoon to lead the Wildcats to a 7-3 win over New Orleans in Southland Conference action at Maestri Field.
The win gives ACU back-to-back wins for the first time this season and pushes the Wildcats to 12-31 on the season and 10-13 in the Southland Conference. The Privateers, meanwhile, fall to 14-31 and 3-20. The Wildcats won just six conference games last season, its first back in the Southland Conference since 1973.
ACU now has a chance to sweep its first Southland Conference series since it returned to the league when the Wildcats and Privateers close the series Sunday at 1 p.m.
Altimont evened his record in conference play at 3-3 with the win and lowered his ERA against Southland Conference opponents to 1.71 with his sixth quality start, all of them coming in conference play. In 47 1/3 innings of work in seven conference starts, Altimont has struck out 39 batters and given up just 35 hits and opponents are hitting just .207 against him.
Altimont -- 3-7 overall with a 3.57 ERA on the season -- needed just 90 pitches to get through seven innings. He allowed just five hits and didn't walk a batter while striking out nine Privateers in seven scoreless innings. Altimont stranded a pair of Privateers on base in the third inning, and then proceeded to retire 10 straight batters in the game's middle innings.
ACU took advantage of three more UNO errors in Saturday's game to score three unearned runs, all of those coming in the third inning, and all scoring with two outs. Two runs scored on a throwing error on a ball hit by Heath Beasley, and then Beasley scored on an RBI single by freshman Marcelle Carter.
The Wildcats tacked on single runs in the fifth and sixth on solo home run by Carroll in the fifth and an RBI single by Aaron Draper in the sixth inning. The Wildcats scored two more runs in the seventh when Tyler Eager and Carter each scored on wild pitches to make it 7-0.
New Orleans got three runs late against ACU's bullpen before Ladgie Zotyka came into the game with two outs and two on in the bottom of the ninth and got a fly ball out to end the game.
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Northwestern State 8, Notre Dame 2
SOUTH BEND, Ind. – The Northwestern State baseball team’s resiliency does not surprise third-year coach Lane Burroughs.
That mental toughness and short-term memory were on display Saturday afternoon at Jake Kline Field at Frank Eck Stadium, as the Demons rebounded from a subpar Friday night with an 8-2 victory against host Notre Dame.
“Big-time road win right there against a good club,” Burroughs said. “It’s an RPI booster. I don’t know what it will do for us, but it goes to show we can play against anybody. The difference is quality at-bats. (Friday) we didn’t have many quality at-bats. We had quality at-bats against a pretty good arm.”
The Demons (25-19) bounced back from a 4-1 Friday-night loss by posting consecutive three-run innings in the second and third innings.
After a scoreless first inning, Northwestern State took advantage of Notre Dame shortstop Lane Richards’ error on a hit and run to take a 3-0 lead. Garrett Logan delivered the biggest hit of the inning, a two-run double that sailed over right fielder Robert Youngdahl’s head.
Freshman Kwan Adkins followed with the first hit of his career, an RBI single up the middle to score Logan.
An inning later, the Demons tallied three more runs against Brandon Bielak (4-2), doing so with a bases-loaded hit by pitch by David Fry, a sacrifice fly by C.J. Webster and a run-scoring wild pitch by Bielak, putting the Irish (30-17) in a 6-0 hole.
That was plenty of support for Josh Oller, who scattered six hits and two runs in 6 2-3 solid innings of work to improve to 8-1 on the season. Oller grinded his way through 101 pitches, allowing single runs in the third and fourth innings.
Chase Hymel and Brandon Smith collected the final seven outs, doing so in scoreless fashion.
“My main focus going into today was getting ahead with strike one,” Oller said. “I struggled with it early, but I cleaned it up toward the end.”
Oller’s outing came after the Irish touched his brother, Adam Oller, for four runs in five innings Friday night.
“Our ability to flush things, whether it’s a win or a loss,” Oller said, “we’ve got to come out and what we did yesterday doesn’t really matter. We have to go out and compete again.”
Northwestern State tagged Bielak for nine hits and seven runs (four earned) in seven innings with every NSU hitter contributing at least one hit.
Cort Brinson had the lone multi-hit game for the Demons, going 2-for-4 to extend his hitting streak to 26 games, as NSU won its third game of the season against teams currently ranked in the top 70 in the NCAA’s RPI.
It was Northwestern State’s first victory against a Power Five conference school since defeating LSU, 5-2, on April 12, 2011.
Webster put the finishing touches on the win with a leadoff home run in the 8
th inning. Webster’s second home run of the season was a high-arcing shot to straightaway center field off Notre Dame reliever Charlie Vorscheck.
“I’ve been struggling lately,” Webster said. “I just told myself, trust what you know. I played with Charlie for seven years. He’s a new pitcher coming in, trying to get ahead. Fastball down the middle, and I hit straight barrel. It felt great.”
The series concludes with a 10:35 a.m. CDT first pitch, the earliest start time for a Demons game this regular season. Right-hander Jeffrey Stovall (4-4, 4.53) will start for the Demons while Notre Dame will counter with left-hander Scott Tully (3-3, 2.66). The game will be broadcast on 100.7 KZBL FM in Natchitoches, the flagship of the Demon Sports Network. Patrick Netherton will deliver the play-by-play of the game.
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