By Drew Parsley, Louisiana Tech Associate Director Strategic Communications
RUSTON — Louisiana Tech evened up the weekend series with the Memphis Tigers with an 11-4 victory at Saturday.
The Bulldogs started off quick after Garrison Berkley led off for LA Tech with a base hit followed by Michael Ballard belting his third homer of the season over the left field wall to put his team up 2-0 in the first inning.
The two teams kept each other off the board through the second, third and fourth innings before the Tigers put a run across on a wild pitch with the bases loaded. A pair of singles and a hit by pitch led to the jam, but it was all Memphis could scratch off in the frame.
After Ballard led off the home half of the fifth with a double, Eli Berch drove him in to match the Tigers’ run from earlier in the inning. After keeping Memphis from scoring in the sixth, the ‘Dogs increased their advantage with three more runs in the frame.
Berkley drove home a run on an RBI double before two more came across from an RBI by Ballard and solo homer for Colton Coates, which was the infielder’s first career long ball as a collegiate athlete.
Memphis attempted a comeback in the seventh after three runs came across on a groundout and a two-run base hit to close the gap to a 6-4 score in favor of Tech. After the Tigers made a pitching change to start the bottom half, Grant Comeaux was hit by a pitch on the first one thrown by the new Memphis reliever.
Zeb Ruddell moved Comeaux up 90 feet with a single before Matt Houston loaded the bases on a fielder’s choice. On a dribbler back to the mound, the Memphis pitcher attempted at throwing the lead runner out at third but was not in time.
With Cade Patterson coming up to bat, he found himself in a 2-2 count with no outs. The sophomore then launched a ball nearly 380 feet to the Right Field Kennel for a grand slam and put the Bulldogs up six runs late in the game. Coates capped off the five-run frame with an RBI base hit to score Berkley after the outfielder singled and reached second on a groundout.
Ballard and Patterson combined for seven of the team’s 11 RBIs produced on Saturday. Luke Cooley improves his record to 3-0 on the year after tossing 4.1 innings, allowing one run on six hits, one walk and fanning four Tigers batters. Blake Hooks earned his second save of the year after tossing 2.1 shutout innings allowing two hits, three walks and striking out four.
The rubber match is set for Sunday, March 2 at 1 p.m. at the Love Shack.
Head Coach Lane Burroughs‘ comments on Saturday’s game:
“[Memphis] is a good team–they have a lot of new guys and they’re just trying to find their way, kind of like we are. I thought the three Mississippi pitchers today—that was our recipe last week in the win against Southern Miss—Cooley to [Lane] Forsythe to Hooks, and they were electric again. Cooley gave us all he had, and we needed a guy with velocity. I thought Cooley was running on fumes a little bit, and we needed somebody that had some gas. You know, Forsythe throws the ball so hard, and he came in and got a huge punchout and we didn’t feel like they could catch up to the velo. He gave us some quality innings, and then Hooks—you hate to run him back out for a third inning when you have a seven-run lead, but the wind is blowing out, they’re physical and he was already lathered up. He may can go an inning tomorrow, but you have to get this win. End of the day, you have to get it. Proud of our guys—that was the whole talk to the team before the game is ‘compete and play hard, don’t worry about the scoreboard.’ It’ll take care of itself. A lot of people—we had another great crowd. These people come out to watch us play, they’re counting on us and when you compete and you play hard, they’re going to come back. Win or lose, I thought we did that today. We did not last night, but we competed today. We played extremely hard. We jumped the yard three times—we’ve been struggling with power. We hadn’t hit any balls out of the ballpark. Ballard got one, and obviously Coates, and of course Patterson with the huge grand slam that kind of put the game out of reach. I’m extremely proud of those guys. I think every hitter had a hit, we only struck out five times, walked five times and had an HBP. So, we had more freebies than strikeouts. But when you do that, you dominate average plays—I think we had one error—and throw strikes, you’re going to have a chance to win and that’s what happened today.”
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.
