Grand slams from Tulane’s Sam Honeck and Jeremy Shaffer added to the Colonels’ 13-point loss of 15-2 against the Green Wave of Tulane University making it the Colonels third loss in the last four games.”I was very disappointed in the way our guys competed tonight,” head Coach Chip Durham said. “We gave up too many free passes with walks, hit batters and errors. Without those, we may be headed to the fourth inning up 2-1 rather than down 12-2. After that it just seemed like we didn’t have any fight. It just comes down to the way we competed tonight. We seemed scared against a team that we shouldn’t have been scared of.”
The Green Wave started off scoring in the first inning with a single to left field with a score of 1-0.
The Colonels scored two in the top of the second when junior Keith Kulbeth doubled to right field scoring red shirt freshman Blake Bergeron and senior Josh Swenson.
The Green Wave answered in the bottom of the second when Honeck hit a grand slam to right field increasing their lead to 5-2.
Starting junior pitcher Jake Parrish pitched 2.2 innings allowing ten hits, six runs and struck out two.
The Green Wave came back in the bottom of the third scoring seven runs. Four of the seven runs came from the grand slam from Shaffer. The other three runs came from two doubles from Tulane’s team.
Freshman pitcher Ryan Cooper served 2.1 innings allowing one hit and two runs. Sophomore pitcher Drew Erwin came in for relief for junior Dale Dickerson who walked all four batters he faced allowing three to score increasing the Green Wave lead to 15-2. Erwin pitched two innings allowing one hit and one strike out.
Ryan Harding, closing pitcher for the game for the Colonels, served one inning allowing no hits and striking out three batters.
Unfortunately, the Colonels could not cut their thirteen-point deficit and fell to the Green wave 15-2.
The Colonels had their one and only win against the Lumberjacks of Stephen F. Austin on Sunday this past weekend after having the ten-run rule placed into effect the two prior games on Friday and Saturday.
Senior pitcher Ross Larson held the Lumberjacks in his four innings of relief only allowing two hits and none to cross home plate.
Bergeron lead the team in hitting going three for three on the day.
Scoring in the second inning was Swenson and juniors Chris Murrill and Zach Tisdale as well as Bergeron. Assisting with scoring was Bergeron, Kulbeth and juniors Stephen Gauthe and Kevin Schlegel all posting one RBI for the inning. The Colonels held the lead 4-0.
In the third, the Lumberjacks cut the Colonels’ lead in half scoring two runs cutting the lead to two.
The Lumberjacks gave the Colonels a run for their money in the fifth scoring a run and cutting the lead to one with a score of 4-3 making it anyone’s game.
The Colonels answered in the eighth when Tisdale scored from a sacrifice bunt from Schlegel. Schlegel had a team best of two RBI’s for the game.
In the ninth, Murrill hit a solo homerun to lock in the Colonel win of 6-3.
The Colonels were not able to score a run on Saturday against the Mavericks with the ten-run rule taking effect in the seventh inning with a score of 11-0.
Swenson as well as junior Jason Dennis were the only Colonels who recorded a multi-hit game going two for three at the plate contributing to the Colonels’ seven hits on the game.
Also contributing was Murrill, Tisdale and junior Drew Snider.
Stephen F. Austin’s starting pitcher Erich Lehmann pitched all seven innings for the Lumberjacks not allowing a single Colonel to cross home plate while striking out six batters in the process.
What the Colonels may have thought to be a good start on Friday, with Swenson’s single down the left side to start off scoring, turned out to be a 13-2 loss for the Colonels with the game ending in the seventh inning due to the ten-run rule.
The Lumberjacks would score four runs off of four hits in the thirdas well as also score in the fifth and sixth with three runs for four hits and one run for one hit respectively.
The Colonels tried to come back in the top of the seventh, scoring with bases loaded from three walks and a free base when freshman Jacob Knight was hit by a pitch. The Colonels cut the Lumberjack lead to six with a score of 8-2.
However, the Lumberjacks answered the Colonels’ one point scoring five runs of their own off of four hits causing the ten-run rule to take effect.
The Colonels are 5-4 in conference play and hope to increase conference wins this weekend taking in the Mavericks of the University of Texas-Arlington March 27-29 at 6 p.m., 3 p.m. and 1 p.m. respectively.
