| May 24, 2006 Baseball drops heart-breaker in tournament opener Box Score
BEAUMONT - No. 4 seed Lamar rallied from a 5-0 deficit and notchedan 11-inning, 6-5 victory against the third-seeded UTSA baseball team in day one of the 2006 Southland Conference Tournament at Vincent-BeckStadium. The Roadrunners, who have dropped five of their past six games, dropped to 36-21 on the season.
Josh Blakley went four innings and took the loss (3-2) for UTSA.Starter Josh Ruffin went 6.2 innings, allowing five runs on seven hits. Four players had two hits and Michael McKennon and Mitch Ponza each had a pair of RBIs.
Lamar reliever Derrick Gordon, who tossed five scoreless innings andstruck out six, evened his record to 4-4. SLC Player of the Year Collin DeLomewent 2-for-5 with three RBIs and hit his 11th homer of the year.
UTSA opened the scoring with five runs in the second. After MichaelRockett and James Keithley reached base with back-to-back singles, RyanSaltzgaber was intentionally walked to load the bases. Ponza thenripped a two-run single and J.R. Voyles plated the third run of the framewith a sacrifice fly. McKennon added two-run single to give the Roadrunnersan early 5-0 lead.
The Cardinals answered quickly with a three-run homer by DeLome in thetop of the third. Three innings later, LU threatened by loading the bases with two outs, but Ruffin was able to get out of the jam by forcing pinch hitter Andrew Leal to fly out.
Lamar tied the game at five in the top seventh. The first run came home when Hernandez drew a two-out walk that plated senior Will Henderson. Thatbrought Blakley in from the bullpen, but Ryan Baker tied the game witha infield single.
In the 11th, DeLome led off the inning with a double and advanced tothird with two outs in the inning. Hernandez' single plated the winning run and sent the Cardinals into the winners bracket.
UTSA will face No. 6 seed Northwestern State tomorrow at 3 p.m.
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