May 22, 2009

Box Score

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas - Texas State scored five unearned runs in the third inning and defeated Lamar 10-1 in a winner's bracket game on the second day of the Southland Conference Baseball Tournament at Whataburger Field in a ballgame that ended just after midnight on Friday morning.

Lamar (37-21) drops into the loser's bracket where it will face UT Arlington on Friday at Noon. Texas State (40-14) will face the winner of the Friday matinee at approximately 7 p.m. and has two chances to advance to Saturday's championship game.

The Cardinals had six hits and committed three errors that led to six total unearned runs. Starter Matison Smith allowed runners to reach in the each of the first two innings but got out of the situations unscathed, but couldn't escape a couple of costly defensive miscues in the third as he dropped to 6-6 while lasting 2.1 innings.

"We got outpitched and Texas State made plays while we didn't," said Lamar head coach Jim Gilligan. "They made all of the plays defensively that they needed to make."

Meanwhile, the Lamar hitters were making good contact but just right at the Texas State fielders. That allowed Brian Borski to improve to 7-3 while working 6.1 innings despite more than half of his 120 pitches - 62 - going for balls and six walks. The Cardinals also left ten men on base and hit into a pair of double plays.

Centerfielder Anthony Moore had a triple and a double to lead the Lamar offense, while third baseman Chris Dunkin offered up a pair of singles and had a season-high six assists. Brian Taylor extended his hitting streak to ten games with a single in the seventh.

Texas State scored its first two runs on a pair of infield singles by Keith Prestridge and Spenser Dennis, before a Bent Theriort sacrifice fly made it a 3-0 Bobcat lead. Lance Loftin followed with an RBI single before Kyle Livingstone doubled over Moore's head in center and drove in Dennis and Loftin to give the top seed a five-run cushion.

The Bobcats added a run in the fifth when Dennis scored on a Livingstone sacrifice fly, and another in the seventh as Prestridge crossed home on Theriot's second sac fly of the game.

Lamar got on the board in the seventh when Moore tripled off the wall in straight-away center and scored on a Tyler Link groundout.

For the Bobcats, Sibley scored for the second time as he recorded the tenth run of the night on a groundout in the eighth that made it a 10-1 score.

"We need to find a way to get two wins tomorrow so we can get to Saturday and get our pitching back in order," Gilligan added.