March 20, 2008

Box Score

The SU Pirate baseball team came away from its first Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference game of the season with a 6-5 win in San Antonio, TX against Trinity University on Thursday (Mar. 20) evening.

The scoring started in the third as senior Jamie Herrmann (Houston, TX/Westside HS) led things off with a single, followed by an infield single off the bat of Mark Noggle (Houston, TX/Clear Lake HS) and they were then advance to second and third on a sacrifice bunt from Matt Clark (Spring, TX/Klein HS). TU's starter then hit Todd Boone (Huntsville, TX/Huntsville HS) to load the bases and then hit Richard Falcone (Houston, TX/Westside HS) to force in a run. John Wooten (Columbus, TX/Columbus HS) then stroked a two-run double down the right field line, followed by consecutive RBI singles from Blake Williams (Lufkin, TX/Lufkin HS) and Michael Murphy (Houston, TX/Austin HS) for a 5-0 lead.

The Tigers answered with a single run in the bottom of the inning off SU starter Wes Willis (Austin, TX/Austin HS) to pull within four. The Bucs added a single run in the fifth frame when Boone led off the inning with a single and advanced to second on a throwing error. Falcone advanced him to third with a single and then Wooten brought him home with a sacrifice fly. Trinity got one run in the seventh and then in the eighth pulled within one thanks to a three-run home run with one out. First-year Brantley Freeman (Mansfield, TX/Mansfield HS) came on and got an inning-ending double play to preserve the lead and the win.

Willis threw 7.1 innings to earn his fifth win of the season and run his record to 5-1. He gave up five earned runs on 11 hits while striking out seven and walking just one. Freeman picked up the first save of his collegiate career with 1.2 innings of perfect ball in relief. He struck out one.

Offensively, Wooten pushed his current hitting streak to 14 games with a 1-3 performance at the plate. He had a double and a sacrifice fly to drive in three runs while also scoring once. Williams and Herrmann both had multi-hit games, collecting two a piece. Boone scored twice for Southwestern.

The win brings the Pirates to 11-12 on the year and 1-0 in the SCAC. Trinity, meanwhile, falls to 14-8 and 3-2 in the conference.

The two teams face off in a doubleheader on Friday (Mar. 21) with the first game set to begin at 1:00 pm in San Antonio.