April 12, 2008

Box Score

By Josh Brown

McNeese SID Intern

Lake Charles, LA-

The McNeese State Cowboys baseball team committed five errors as it let one get away in the second game of a Southland Conference series with Texas-Arlington here Saturday afternoon.

The Cowboys now sit at 10-24 overall with a 5-9 record in SLC play. The Mavericks improved to 14-20 on the year while getting back to level in SLC action with a 7-7 record.

Scott Holstein was tagged with the loss, falling to 1-4 on the season for the Cowboys. He went six innings, giving up eight runs, six of them earned, on 12 hits while walking and striking out four apiece.

Maverick reliever Adam Boydston came on in the fifth inning, pitching 4.1 innings to earn his first win and improve to 1-0 on the year.

The Cowboys got into an early hole once again, giving up four runs in the top of the second inning to fall behind 4-0 early on.

The Cowboys were able to get a run back in the bottom half of the frame as Nick Eubanks reached on a fielder's choice, advanced to second base and then scored on a Justin Beitzel single to make it 4-1.

The Mavericks came back with two more runs of in the top of the third to extend their lead to 6-1.

The Cowboys answered back with two runs of its own in the bottom of the third, the second of five straight innings the Cowboys would score at least one run in.

In the third, Mace Hebert opened the inning with a triple to right center field. Sam Merrill followed it up with a single through the right side of the infield to bring Hebert in and make it 6-2. After Josh Cholley and Shon Landry groundouts moved Merrill to third, Taylor Freeman hit an RBI single to left center field and make it 6-3.

The Cowboys scored a run in the fourth after the bases were loaded and a pitch hit Cholley, bringing in Kanon Broussard to get within 6-4 of UTA. The Cowboys then cut the lead to one in the bottom of the fifth when Nick Eubanks drilled a pitch to the opposite field for a homerun over the right field wall to make it 6-5 UTA.

That, however, was as close as the Cowboys would ever get on the afternoon.

UTA would score two more runs in the sixth inning to extend the lead back to three at 8-5.

McNeese was able to get two runs back in the sixth when Cholley singled, followed by a Landry walk to put runners at first and second. Taylor Freeman then hit a single to right field that went under the fielder's glove all the way to the wall, scoring Cholley and Landry with Freeman ending up on third base, making the score 8-7 in favor of UTA.

In the top of the seventh, UTA added two runs to extend its lead back to three at 10-7.

Keith Patnode hit his first homerun of the season in the bottom of the ninth inning but it was not enough, as the Cowboys could muster no more than the lone run and fell by a score of 10-8.

Beitzel, who collected four hits, led the Cowboys on the day. Freeman had three hits, Merrill and Patnode had two each while Cholley, Eubanks and Hebert notched one hit apiece.

Freeman had two RBI while Merrill, Cholley, Eubanks, Patnode and Beitzel had one RBI each.

The Cowboys are back in action against UTA at 1 PM on Sunday afternoon to complete the SLC series. Ryan Frantz will be on the mound for the Cowboys.