April 19, 2008

Box Score

On Saturday (Apr. 19), the Southwestern baseball team won two games at two different locations as part of the SCAC Divisional Tournament in Tennessee, defeating Centre College 6-4 in the afternoon and 5-2 at night.

In the first game, Wes Willis (Austin, TX/Austin HS) went the distance to win his ninth consecutive decision. The junior is now 9-1 on the year and leads the conference in wins. At the plate, senior Richard Falcone (Houston, TX/Westside HS) was 3-4 with two RBI.

The Colonels jumped ahead to a 4-0 lead with a single run in each of the first four innings off Willis. In the bottom of the fourth, the Pirates scored a pair of runs on back to back doubles from Mark Noggle (Houston, TX/Clear Lake HS) and Eric Gonzales (Austin, TX/Bowie HS).

In the sixth, SU cut the lead to one when Falcone scored Gonzales with a double. In the seventh, the Pirates scored three to take the 6-4 lead. Sophomore Matt Clark (Spring, TX/Klein HS) drew a bases loaded walk to drive in a run, followed by a Todd Boone (Huntsville, TX/Huntsville HS) RBI walk and then Falcone singled in a run. Willis held Centre scoreless over the final five innings.

In game two, sophomore John Wooten (Columbus, TX/Columbus HS) drove in three runs and had two hits in four at bats. First-year Kyle Belski (Missouri City, TX/Dulles HS) struck out eight in 8.1 innings to improve his record to 3-4 on the year. Brantley Freeman (Mansfield, TX/Mansfield HS) earned the save for the Bucs.

Southwestern jumped to an early lead in the second with three straight singles but Centre answered in the bottom half of the inning with a solo home run. SU went up 2-1 in the fifth, scoring on a Centre error. The Colonels had six errors in the game.

Three more Pirate runs crossed in the seventh inning when Wooten singled to right and an error by the right fielder put Wooten on third. Centre managed to push a run across in the ninth but failed to get any closer as Freeman came on and struck out both batters he faced.

The Pirates are now 22-18 for the season and will advance to the conference tournament that begins on Friday (Apr. 25) in Danville, KY.