Baseball Recap (Week 11) - Around the SCAC

Austin College went 1-2 in its three game series against visiting Ecclesia College, falling 4-1 in on Friday and 7-6 in a 10-inning heartbreaker in Saturday’s game one, before finishing the series with a 7-4 win in game two on Saturday. James Saulnier had a big weekend at the plate for the ‘Roos, batting .500 with four runs batted in over the three game series, including going 2-for-3 with three RBI in the 7-4 victory. Brett Moody picked up the victory in the series finale, surrendering four unearned runs on just three hits in 5.0 innings of work with three strikeouts. The ‘Roos had also taken a 4-2 lead in game one on Saturday before the Royals rallied back to force extras, and after the ‘Roos tied things up again to force a 10th inning, Ecclesia jumped on top 7-6 and the ‘Roos stranded the tying run at third. 

Centenary forced a split Saturday to finish 1-2 on the weekend against nationally ranked Trinity. The Gents out-hit the Tigers .263 to .219 over the weekend led by Aaron Quintanilla’s five hits during the span. The Centenary freshman, who hit .455, also drove in three runs which also tied for tops on the weekend. Michael Schimpf and Chris Jones each batted .333 or better for the Maroon and White with Schimpf posting a .400 clip with Jones at .364. Holden Novak tossed 6.0 innings to log the only win on the bump for the Gents. Novak allowed just one earned run in action while giving up five hits and striking out a pair. Layton Tromba tossed a team-best 9.0 innings, but didn’t factor into the decision of the extra inning outing on Friday. Tromba allowed just one earned run on six hits while striking out a team-leading six batters. Centenary closes out the regular season on Tuesday evening at LSU-Shreveport. First pitch is slated for 6 p.m.

Dallas went 0-3 on the week in conference action. On Friday, in Georgetown, Texas, the Crusaders fell 3-2 (F/9) to Southwestern University. Senior second baseman Mark Carlson -- the nation’s 2014 leader in triples -- tallied his ninth to tie the single-season school record. On Saturday, the navy and white lost 11-3 (F/7) and then 8-7 (F/10) to the Pirates. Dallas needed to win two of these game to clinch a spot in the SCAC championship tournament. Unable to accomplish this fete, they ended their 2014 slate as the SCAC’s No. 5 team.

Schreiner finished the season taking one of three against Texas Lutheran; with the lone win coming in the form of a five hit shutout by way of the pitching combination of So. Matt Barnett and Sr. Ethan Catalani. Mountaineers also got help from Jr. Caleb Veteto and Sr. Ryan Pisseri who came up big, with back to back triples to win 2-1.  Schreiner continues to steadily improve under the guidance of head coach Ryan Brisbin, improving their win total each year since his arrival. 

Southwestern finished off a three game sweep of the University of Dallas to clinch the No. 4 seed in the SCAC Baseball Championship Tournament. The Pirates closed out the weekend with 22 total runs in the sweep as Will Cates paced the Pirate offense going 4-for-8 with a double and an RBI. Cates also scored two runs and stole a base as Southwestern set a single-game and single-season record for stolen bases in the finale on Saturday. Ranking in the top five in NCAA III in stolen bases entering the weekend the Pirates stand at 100 stolen bases on the year currently – breaking the previous record from 2002 with 93 – and swiped eight in an 8-7 win in 10 innings Saturday. The previous single-game record was eight. Matt Litz, Dickson Wharton and Jacob Kendra all earned wins as Litz made two relief appearances and allowed just one hit and five strikeouts in 3.2 innings pitched.

Texas Lutheran went 3-1 last week with a home win over NAIA Houston-Victoria and a 2-1 series victory over Schreiner. The Texas Lutheran Bulldogs received seven shutout innings from senior left-hander Christian DeBlanc and three RBI from junior shortstop Zach Jacobs in Tuesday’s 5-1 non-conference win over the University of Houston at Victoria. The Bulldogs ended the week by securing the No. 2 seed for the upcoming conference tournament in San Antonio. The Bulldogs bounced back from a disappointing loss Thursday to post 7-1 and 11-1 Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference wins Friday over the Schreiner Mountaineers. At TLU’s Katt-Isbel Field, the Bulldogs’ turn-around began with starting pitching. Junior right-hander Aaron Aleman spun a complete-game four-hitter in the early game, and senior right-hander Kellen McGriff tossed seven scoreless and allowed only two hits in the late game. In the 7-1 win on Friday, the Bulldogs took an early 4-0 lead after three innings. Three of the four runs were unearned. Schreiner committed four errors in the early-game loss and three more in the late game. Derek Kanas doubled, went 2-for-4, scored two runs and drove in a run in the opener. Danny Brauckman belted a two-run triple and scored a run. In the late game, TLU opened a 6-0 lead by the end of the third. The Bulldogs started the game triple-single-triple-single in scoring three runs in the bottom of the first. TLU ended the game by the 10-run rule in the eighth inning. Van Wilhelm drew the walk-off walk in the eighth.

No. 9/3 Trinity went 2-1 at Centenary to finish off its SCAC schedule for the regular season. The Tigers won 4-2 in the 12-inning series opener on Friday night, then took a 12-3 win to open a Saturday doubleheader.  Trinity just missed a shot at sweeping the season series from Centenary, though, falling 5-4 in the finale. Trinity also won three games in San Antonio against the Gents earlier this year. Recently, Tiger senior Christian Muscarello broke a pair of school records for a career.  Muscarello has reached 182 games played and 181 games started in his career, which is the most by any Trinity player in history.  He also needs just five more at-bats to surpass Jason Armstrong (2001-04) for the Tiger career record in that category as well. Trinity finishes off its regular season schedule on Tuesday afternoon, facing off against the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in Belton, Texas.  The Tigers will host the SCAC Tournament May 2-4 in San Antonio, and will square off with Southwestern University at 1:00 p.m. in the opening game of the championships. 

To view the entire SCAC Around the Horn for week eleven, click here.