April 19, 2008

Box Score

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas - Lamar jumped out to a 9-3 lead before Texas A&M-Corpus Christi tied the game at 11 in the ninth to force extra innings where the Islanders got a walk-off 3-run home run from Stephen Flora for a 14-12 win at Fairgrounds Field Saturday afternoon.

Lamar (22-16, 11-6 Southland) lost its first extra-inning contest of the season while TAMUCC (14-24, 9-8 SLC) evened the series at 1-1 entering Sunday's finale.

After the Islanders tied the game in the bottom of the ninth on a sacrifice fly by Ernie Olivarez, Lamar regained the momentum with one out in the tenth when Chris Dunkin hit his third home run of the season over the left-field wall. But Brycen Bell led off with a single up the middle and Chase Williams walked to set up Flora's game-winning hit.

Jordan Thibodeaux (0-1) suffered the loss after one inning of work and six batters faced. He came on with no out and the bases loaded in the ninth to record all three outs. He got Martin Parra to hit into a fielder's choice on a ball that first baseman Steven Tucker got the lead runner out at home. Olivarez followed with the game-tying sac fly before Jonathan Reyes flied out to center to end the inning.

Brett Gibson (3-1) earned the victory with 0.2 inning as he entered after Dunkin's go=ahead blast in the tenth.

Tyler Link went 4-for-5 with four RBI and two runs scored, including a 3-run blast to left field in the second inning that gave Lamar a 4-1 lead. He reached base in all six plate appearances as he led off the game by reaching on an error and walked in the fourth.

Nik Gumeson gave the Cardinals a 7-1 advantage on a 3-run double to left field in the third. It was his second two-bagger of the game after leading off the second with a ball down the left-field line. He scored on Link's homer two batters later. Dunkin had three hits and reached a fourth time via an Islander error while scoring twice and driving in two runs.

Both teams committed five errors and there were three runners thrown out at home, including two at the plate.

LU scored three runs in the second, third and fourth innings to obtain the 9-3 lead. The Islanders got three in the fourth and four in the seventh to cut the margin to 11-10 leading into the ninth.

Lamar starter Tim Erickson struck out four in five innings before leaving six runs on nine hits. LU used six pitchers while TAMUCC went seven deep on Saturday. The Islanders have used nine total pitchers in the first two games of the series with the Cardinals utilizing seven..

Sunday's finale is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m.