Jonathan Rhodes/The Lion's Roar
The Lions baseball team extended their winning streak to 10 games before losing in the final match of the weekend series against Lamar. This loss was the Lions first conference loss of the season and the first time Lamar has defeated the Lions since 2014. The Lions won the first two out of the three games 6-5, 4-1 but lost the final game 13-5.
The Lions record overall is now 14-5. However, Head Coach Matt Riser does not want the team to get too caught up in how many games they have won consecutively.
“It’s still early,” said Riser. “Every game is so vital and so important. It’s really important for us to just make sure we stick to the process. It’s easy to get result oriented and say ‘Hey man, we won ten in a row.’ Well, the reason we got there is we didn’t set out from game one to win 10 in a row. We just set out to win game number one. Now the process is just win the next one, win the next pitch, win the next inning. These guys have done a good job of understanding that.”
The pitching for the Lions helped them to hold on to leads in the first and second game on Mar. 17 and 18. Junior pitcher Mac Sceroler pitched for five innings in the first game and walked three and struck out three batters. Sophomore pitcher Corey Gaconi retired seven batters in a row during the second game and did not walk a single batter.
“When I went out there, I knew Lamar was a good hitting team as I found out in the first at bat,” said Gaconi. “After that, I kind of settled in and just came throwing strikes. My defense played great behind me really making a lot of plays. I kinda got into a groove, and I just rolled with it.”
Junior infielder Taylor Schwaner earned three runs-batted-in on his birthday for the second game. Schwaner continues to lead the conference in RBI’s and has a batting average of .362.
“Just trying to keep this thing rolling,” said Schwaner. “I just got to take it one game at a time. Say I go 0-4 in one game, I got to just forget about that and go to the next one and take it one day at a time.”
In the third game on Mar. 19, the Lions started with a four run lead by the bottom of the fifth inning, but the Cardinals blew the game open with a seven run inning in the top of the eight. Senior outfielder Webb Bobo hit his first home run of the season in the loss.
“We started well early on,” said Bobo. “We probably lost a little focus there late. Some days it just happens our energy got a little down and it’s just the game of baseball. We’ve had 10 straight wins and we’ve been playing pretty well and they were in a spot where they did not want to get swept. They just knew that they had to pull it out, and they bared down on us. They got it done, and we didn’t.”
Tomorrow, the Lions will travel to Alex Box Stadium in Baton Rouge to face No. 6 ranked LSU.
“It’s a big in-state rivalry for us,” said Bobo. “We haven’t beat them since I have been here, but we have always been right there with them. I think we got a really good club this year. We are going to go down there on Wednesday and have a really good shot.”
Jonathan Rhodes/The Lion’s Roar
Jonathan Rhodes/The Lion’s Roar