GEORGETOWN, Texas - Texas Lutheran scored eight runs in the
first inning and nine in the final inning to hand Southwestern a
22-10 loss on Tuesday afternoon. The loss drops the Pirates to
11-21 on the year while Texas Lutheran improves to 22-8.
Texas Lutheran came out strong with eight runs in the opening
inning that included a grand slam from Haines. Southwestern slowly
began to chip back at the lead, manufacturing one run in the first
and second and then added four runs in the fourth, cutting the lead
to five 11-6.
After a plethora of defensive changes in the fifth for the
Pirates the Bulldogs posted two more runs on the board with a
lead-off triple by Nokelby followed by a single and double. Bender
worked his way out of the inning after forcing a couple of pop-outs
and struck out Griffith.
The new batters started strong at the plate as Jay Sterling
singled to right field and Matt Clark followed with another single,
advancing a hustling Sterling to third base. He was brought in by
Eric Ramos' infield single. Nick Mace drew a walk to load the
bases for Kyle Belski. Belski rose to the challenge as he had done
all day, walking in another run and Cray Betts followed suit with
another walk for the third Pirate run of the inning and keeping the
bases loaded. After all was said and done SU had cut the lead to
four, 13-9, heading into the sixth.
A leadoff triple by the Bulldogs in the seventh was fruitless as
the Nick Mace and the SU defense forced two shallow fly balls and
Mace sat down the final batter himself to keep TLU within striking
distance.
After a scoreless sixth and seventh for both teams Texas
Lutheran jumped back on the board and put the game out of reach for
Southwestern with nine runs in the eighth. SU only scored one in
the bottom of the inning and TLU left Georgetown with the 22-10 run
rule victory.
Belski was 3-4 on the afternoon with three RBI's to lead the way
for Southwestern. Nokelby led for the Bulldogs going 3-4 with three
RBI's and three runs.
Southwestern returns to SCAC action this weekend with a three
game series at Millsaps College.
