March 22, 2008

Box Score

On the second day of Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference game in San Antonio, TX with Trinity University, the Southwestern baseball team lost both games of a doubleheader Saturday (Mar. 21) to the Tigers by scores of 2-0 and 10-7.

Trinity 2, Southwestern 0

The first game was a seven-inning affair that stayed scoreless through four and half. The Pirates had a scoring opportunity in the second when Michael Murphy (Houston, TX/Austin HS) drew a leadoff walk followed by an Eric Gonzales (Austin, TX/Bowie HS) single put runners on first and second with no outs. After a fielder's choice, the Pirates had men on first and third with one out but Trinity managed to turn a double play to get out of the inning.

In the third, the Tigers saw a scoring chance disappear as Blake Williams (Lufkin, TX/Lufkin HS) threw out a runner at the plate and SU kept Trinity off the board despite three Tiger hits in the inning. TU finally broke through against SU starter Chris Churchwell (Kingwood, TX/Kingwood HS) in the fifth. Churchwell gave up three two-out hits and two runs. The Pirates failed to get anything going against Trinity starter Evan Bronson and managed just four hits.

Senior second baseman Richard Falcone (Houston, TX/Westside HS) went 2-3 in the game with a single and a double. The other two players to record hits for the Bucs were Gonzales and Zach Copeland (Dallas, TX/W.T. White HS).

On the mound, Churchwell went six innings and allowed just the two earned runs. The southpaw gave up seven hits, struck out five and walked two as his record falls to 0-3 on the season.

Trinity 10, Southwestern 7

Game two saw quite a bit more offense than the first with the Pirates striking in the top of the first inning. Falcone singled to left field and then scored on a double from Williams to make it 1-0. Trinity answered with three runs on three hits and an error to go up 3-1 after one. In the second, SU got a pair of doubles from Nick Ashford (Red Oak, TX/Red Oak HS) and Todd Boone (Huntsville, TX/Huntsville HS) for one run followed by Copeland pinch running for Boone and scoring on a wild pitch to tie the game at 3-3.

In the third, Southwestern took a one-run lead when Murphy reached second on an error, advanced to third on a flyout and then scored on a wild pitch. Jamie Herrmann (Houston, TX/Westside HS) added to the lead with a solo home run in the fifth. In the top of the seventh, Matt Clark (Spring, TX/Klein HS) drove in a run with a bases loaded walk and Falcone hit an RBI single to the shortstop to make the score 7-3.

Pirate pitching allowed the Tigers to score four runs in the bottom half of the seventh to tie the game at 7-7. In the eighth, Trinity got a pair of hits and two sacrifice flies to go ahead 10-7 for a lead the Pirates could not cut into in the ninth.

Falcone recorded three hits in six at bats, scoring once and driving in one. Williams was 2-5 and Herrmann was 2-4 in the game with both players driving in one and Herrmann scoring one. As a team, the Pirates had 10 hits in the game.

First-year Kyle Belski (Missouri City, TX/Dulles HS) started on the mound for SU, giving up four runs in six innings. Only three of the runs were earned and he struck out seven while walking one. The loss was pinned on sophomore Joe Lange (Houston, TX/Lamar HS) who threw one inning and allowed three earned runs. Lange is now 2-3 on the year.

With the two losses, the Pirates' record drops to 1-2 in the SCAC and 11-14 overall. Trinity stands at 16-8, 5-2.

The two teams will close out their series on Saturday (Mar. 22) with a single game at 1:00 pm in San Antonio.