April 22, 2008

Box Score

By Josh Brown

McNeese SID Intern

Houston, TX-

The McNeese State Cowboys fell by a score of 7-4 to the Houston Cougars here Tuesay night in non-conference action.

The Cowboys finish off their six game road trip tomorrow night with a non-conference road game against LSU in Baton Rouge. Game time is set for 6:30 PM at Alex Box Stadium.

Starters for both teams factored in the pitching decision as Dallas Smith fell to 2-3 on the year while Houston starter Jared Ray improved to 2-1 on the season.

Smith went five innings for the Pokes, giving up six runs, four of them earned, on six Cougar hits. Walks hurt the Cowboy hurler as he walked seven while striking out two. Travis Bailey came on in relief to pitch three innings to finish the game for the Cowboys.

The Cougars started the scoring off early, scoring three runs in the bottom of the first inning to take a 3-0 lead. Jake Stewart hit a two-run homerun to lead the Cougars in the inning.

Houston added an unearned run in the bottom of the second inning to make it 4-0 before the Cowboys ever got on the board.

In the top of the third inning, McNeese finally broke through to get on the board when Mace Hebert walked and advanced to second on a wild pitch. Sam Merrill then singled to center field to score Hebert to make the score 4-1.

The Cougars got the run back in the bottom half of third on another unearned run to make it 5-1.

The Cowboys answered back with three runs in the top of the fourth to get within one on a Nick Eubanks homerun, his fifth of the year.

Shon Landry singled to lead of the inning and advanced to second on a Taylor Freeman single to put runners on first and second. Eubanks then followed with his homerun to left field to put the score 5-4 in favor of the Cougars.

It would be all the Cowboys could get however as the Cougars scored single runs in the bottom of the fifth and sixth innings to put the final score at 7-4.

No Cowboy batter would register more than one hit as Merrill, Josh Cholley, Landry, Freeman, Eubanks, Justin Beitzel, Tony Coniglio and Hebert would all have one hit apiece.

Eubanks had three RBI on the night with his homerun. Merrill had the only other RBI for the Cowboys.

The Cowboys, now 10-30, travel to Baton Rouge Wednesdasy evening to take on LSU in the final game of a six-game road trip before hosting Texas A&M - Corpus Christi in a Southland Conference series at Cowboy Diamond.