April 11, 2009

Final Stats

SAN MARCOS - A timely home run from Paul Goldschmidt broke open a four inning lull for the Texas State Bobcats and tied the game at 3-3 and Chris Franklin unraveled on the mound to walk in the game-winning run as the team seized a 4-3 win over the Southeastern Louisiana Lions Saturday afternoon at Bobcat Field to complete the weekend sweep.

With the win, Texas State grabbed its first Southland Conference sweep since the opening weekend of action against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. The Bobcats are now 23-10 overall and 13-5 in the SLC and remain in first place.

SLU falls to 20-13 overall and 10-8 in the league. The sweep was the first time this season the Lions have lost three-straight games.

"Personally, it is what I anticipated for this game," said head coach Ty Harrington. "I knew (SLU) would come out and play as hard as they could and they did. We responded well in the second half of the game and did what we needed to do to beat this team and we did."

Down 3-2 in the bottom of the eighth, Texas State responded when Franklin went to mound to grab two outs, but left with two earned runs and his second loss of the season.

Goldschmidt had seen three walks in three plate appearances, but when Franklin pitched to the slugger, Goldschmidt took an 0-1 pitch to left field for his 12th home run this season and the game-tying run.

Franklin continued to struggle on the mound and walked Keith Prestridge, hit Spenser Dennis, walked Kyle Kubitza and devastatingly walked Ben Theriot with the bases loaded to send in the winning run.

The afternoon started with Texas State jumping to a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the third when Prestridge hit a two-run double to right field to score Tyler Sibley and Goldschmidt. Sibley reached on his lone hit of the afternoon, a single to centerfield.

SLU answered with back-to-back one-run innings to tie the game. Brian McCants grabbed a sacrifice fly to send in the Lions first run in the top of the fourth, and on two outs in the next frame the Lions rallied on two outs to tie the game. A trio of singles initiated by Justin Boudreaux paid off as the shortstop scored for a 2-2 game.

In the top of the seventh, two defensive errors plagued the Bobcats as they went down 3-2 before taking over the lead in the eighth. The scare came back in the ninth when Ty Summerlin reached on the team's third error, but Michael Russo was able shut down the Lions for his fifth save of the season.

"Brian Borski pitched excellent and Lance Loftin did the same thing," added Harrington, "but (Michael) Russo pitched outstanding today and that is what we need to come together to win ball games."

Russo threw 13 pitches, nine for strikes, and retired the next three batters the included catching John Cryer looking at the final strike to end the game.

Loftin improved to 2-0 after pitching 2 1/3 innings of relief. The senior collected one strikeout and allowed just one hit and an unearned run.

Texas State was outhit 10-5 by SLU and not one Bobcat notched more than one hit in today's game.

"The biggest accomplishment for us is that we won a conference game," said Harrington. "The sweep is nice and a win over Southeastern Louisiana is great, but in the end we need to win league games and these were three big wins that we needed."

Texas State will move on from the victory for a five-game slate next week. The team will host Houston Baptist Monday and Prairie View A&M Wednesday before traveling to Natchitoches, Louisiana to face Northwestern State for a three-game SLC series.