Box Score

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San Marcos, Texas – Texas State starter Colton Turner allowed just three hits over seven innings on the mound as the Bobcat baseball team completed its fourth series sweep of the 2011 season with an 8-1 victory against Sam Houston State at Bobcat Ballpark on Sunday afternoon. Texas State, which last swept Sam Houston State in 2005, added the Bearkats to its list of series sweeps along with Akron, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Houston.

Turner allowed just five Bearkats to reach base on Friday while striking out five over the course of seven innings. He lowered his season ERA to 3.71 while improving to 4-0 for the season.

“I thought we pitched well on the front end with Turner and the back end with (Travis) Ballew,” said head coach Ty Harrington. “They really attacked the strike zone, and I'm pleased with how they competed.”

Sam Houston State starter Brandon Kimbrel (1-1) suffered his first loss of the season after giving up five earned runs over five innings on the mound.

With the victory, Texas State (15-4) remains atop the Southland Conference standings with a perfect 6-0 record in conference play. Sam Houston State dropped to 12-8 overall and 1-5 in the SLC with the loss.

Offensively, Texas State pounded out 17 hits and eight runs with six different Bobcats recording at least two hits in the game. Casey Kalenkosky led the attack with a pair of home runs to bring his season total to eight, the most in the Southland Conference this season. Andrew Lacombe had a career-high three hits with two RBIs, and Morgan Mickan finished 3-for-5 at the plate after getting his second start of the year at the team's designated hitter. Tyler Sibley extended his hitting streak to 17 games after going 1-for-4.

Sam Houston State scored one in the top of the second to take an early lead, but the Bobcats responded with a five-run third inning to take control of the game.

Bret Atwood started the inning with a double down the left field line before both Jeff McVaney and Kyle Kubitza hit RBI singles to put the Bobcats in front, 2-1. Kalenkosky followed with a two-run opposite-field home run down the right field line to give the team a 4-1 advantage. Cody Gambill, Mickan and Lacombe then hit three consecutive singles, the third of which brought home Gambill for the team's fifth run of the inning.

The score remained 5-1 until the bottom of the sixth inning when the Bobcats sent seven batters to the plate and pushed across another run on an RBI groundout from Kalenkosky to make the score 6-1.

After Turner left the game following the seventh inning, Ballew came in to work a 1-2-3 top of the eighth. In the bottom of the inning, Texas State added a pair of runs as Kalenkosky hit his second home run of the game before Lacombe knocked in his second run with a single to make the final tally 8-1.