By Drew Parsley, Louisiana Tech Associate Director Strategic Communications
RUSTON — The Louisiana Tech Bulldogs fell to the Memphis Tigers Friday night, 7-2, at the Love Shack in the weekend’s series opener and the first game played between the two programs since 1989.
LA Tech opened the scoring in the second after Zeb Ruddell ripped a triple down the right field line to the corner of the stadium before Grant Comeaux followed with an RBI double that sailed over the center fielder’s head and off the wall.
After a scoreless third frame, the Tigers jumped to a 2-1 lead on a solo homer, a base hit and an RBI double in three consecutive at-bats. The fifth and sixth innings featured a defensive battle, with just 12 batters combined coming to the plate for the Tigers and the Bulldogs in those two frames.
With one out in the top of the seventh, the Tigers drew a four-pitch walk before the Memphis runner put himself in scoring position after an overthrow to first by the Bulldog pitcher. An RBI double to the left-center gap scored the runner before another Tiger reached base via walk on a full count.
A second RBI double and a sacrifice fly extended the Tigers’ lead to four before a two-run homer capped off a five-run inning for Memphis.
The ‘Dogs attempted a rally late in the ninth inning after a pair of two-out walks were drawn by Comeaux and Reid Snider, who entered the game in the bottom of the seventh as a pinch hitter. An RBI knock by Matt Houston cut the deficit to five, but a flyout put the game away.
Dating back to last season, Michael Ballardhas reached base safely in 15-straight games with a base hit in 11 of the last 12 games. Ruddell picked up his first triple and multi-hit game as a Bulldog. Ballard is now tied with Garrison Berkley for the most multi-hit games this season at four apiece.
First pitch for Game 2 of the series is set for Saturday, March 1 at 2 p.m. CT.
Head coach Lane Burroughs on his team’s performance Friday night:
“I’m extremely disappointed. It’s the second night in a row we had a great crowd, you have people spending their hard-earned money to come out and watch us compete and we’re not doing it. Our offense, right now, is–I’m bumfuzzled. That was the word I used on the radio a while ago, and it’s my job to figure it out. We’re not really good offensively, we strike out too much–if you put our numbers next to Memphis, it’s pretty much the same. They’re scuffling too, but I watched their two or three-hole hitter go pull-side homer twice and I watched their center fielder battle about a 10-pitch at-bat. We just don’t extend at-bats or get pitch counts up. We got a lot of guys searching and we have to figure out. We need our alphas to step up, if we have any. Right now, the lineup is the hardest thing I do every day. Every day it takes me an hour to make out the lineup, and I haven’t dealt with that pretty much for my entire career. Guys need to take the bull by the horns and say, ‘this is my job and nobody’s taking it.’ We have about three of those guys. We can’t go the whole season just playing different people every time we take the field. At some point, some guys have got to lock it down and right now we’re a long way away from that.”
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