March 12, 2006

Box Score

THIBODAUX, La. - Mike Hart pitched nine shut-out innings, surrendering only six hits for his first career shut out and complete game as Texas State swept Nicholls State with a 6-0 win Sunday at Didier Field in Thibodaux, La.

Texas State (9-11, 5-1 SLC) improved its season-best winning streak to six games, while Nicholls State (4-14, 0-3) was swept by Texas State to open Southland play for the second straight season.

Heath Keel scored a first-inning run on Cody Merrell's RBI double, and the Bobcats went up 2-0 in the fourth when Kyle Jones plated Merrell with a two-out single.

Nicholls State threatened in the fifth, getting a lead-off single and then a one-out single off of Harts shin, but Texas State squashed the rally by forcing the Colonels into a pair of ground-ball outs with runners at second and third.

The Bobcats added to the lead in the sixth, as Luke Cannon led off with a triple to the right-field wall, and a lofted Merrell single followed to push Cannon across and put Texas State up 3-0.

Texas State scored again in the top of the eighth, as David Wood crossed the plate on a sacrifice bunt by Casey Guest, and Hart sat the Colonels in order to end the eighth with the Bobcats on top 4-0.

The `Cats added their fifth and sixth runs of the game in the ninth, as Wood picked up two RBIs on a right-field double that scored Cannon and Thomas Field.

Jones, Keel, Merrell and Wood each had two hits to lead the Bobcat offense, with Wood driving in two in a 2-for-3 day at the plate. Merrell finished with a run scored in a 2-for-4 outing.

Cannon extended his team-leading hitting streak to 11 games, going 1-for-3 with a run scored.

Nicholls State's Michael Roberts led the Colonels at the plate with a 2-for-4 afternoon.

Texas State returns home Tuesday to open a season-long six-game homestand, as the Bobcats host TCU Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.