MOBILE, Ala. – A season-high three errors proved costly as the Texas State baseball team (11-7, 0-1 SBC) squandered an early lead in a 10-7 loss at South Alabama (9-6, 1-0 SBC) Friday night at Stanky Field in the Sun Belt Conference opener for both teams.
 
Nick DeSantis (2-1) earned the win after throwing 1.2 scoreless innings of relief that saw him strikeout one and give up three hits. Nick Greene picked up his third save of the year after retiring the last five Bobcat batters with three coming on strikes. Suffering the loss was Brandon Lewis (0-1) that saw him give up three runs on two hits and a walk in 0.2 innings.
 
Starting on the rubber for the Bobcats was Nicholas Fraze. The junior right-hander went 5.0 innings and struck out six but gave up seven runs on seven hits and two walks. Kyle Bradford threw 1.1 perfect innings with a strikeout. Dontae Woodard faced the minimum in the bottom of the eighth in his fourth appearance of the season.
 
Recording two hits apiece for TXST was Travon Benton, Cole Coffey and Ryan Newman. Dalton Shuffield, Skyler Valentine and Newman all drove in two runs apiece while Jaxon Williams and Benton scored twice.
 
Will Hollis was walked four times to extend his reached base streak to 12 games. His free pass total is the most for a Bobcat in a game since Luke Sherley had four walks against Alabama A&M on Mar. 12, 2017.
 
Three pitches into the game, Williams was hit by a pitch. Hollis drew the first of his four free passes to put two. Both runners moved into scoring position when a balk was called against Drake Nightengale. Valentine put TXST on the board when he flew out to left field for a sacrifice fly.
 
After a single back up the middle by Coffey put runners on the corners, Benton singled to center field to plate a run. Shuffield followed by sending a 1-2 offering back up the middle for a RBI single. He would move up to second on the throw home to put two in scoring position. Newman took advantage and ripped a double over the center fielder's head to increase the lead to 5-0 after the first half inning.
 
USA would get a run back when Bennett Shell hit a leadoff home run over the right field fence.
 
Benton tripled to right field with one out in the third and would score on a sacrifice fly by Shuffield to right to put Texas State back up by five, 6-1.
 
Kaleb DeLaTorre sent the third pitch he saw starting off the fourth over the right field fence to cut the lead to four.
 
The Jaguars would score four runs apiece in the fifth and sixth innings behind two Bobcat errors and a passed ball for the final runs of the contest.
 
The second game of the series takes place at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday.
 
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