SAN ANTONIO — Sophomore Ryan Dalton hit a pair of home runs to lift UTSA to a 5-2 victory in Thursday's series opener against Lamar at Roadrunner Field.
UTSA, which has won five of its last six outings and eight of its last 10 Southland Conference games, improved to 17-22 overall and 9-10 in league play. Lamar dropped to 22-17 overall (9-10 SLC).
With the Roadrunners trailing 2-1, Dalton hammered a two-run homer to left in the third to give UTSA the lead for good. He then added a solo shot to left two innings later to provide the final margin.
The Sugar Land native compiled his third multi-homer game of the season and finished the contest 3-for-4 with three RBIs. He is 8-for-14 (.571) with five long balls and 13 RBIs in his last three contests.
Junior Casey Selsor (4-3) made the lead stand up by notching his fifth quality start. The southpaw limited the Cardinals to two runs on seven hits over seven-plus innings. He walked six and fanned five.
Junior Cody Scott came in with two on in the eighth before striking out the side. He then whiffed the final two batters in the final frame to pick up his third save of the year.
Lamar squandered several scoring chances and left a total of 11 runners on base, including eight in scoring position.
The Cardinals took a 2-0 lead after pushing across single runs in each the first two stanzas.
Sophomore Daniel Rockett belted a solo shot to left in the second inning, his fourth of the spring, which cut the advantage in half.
Freshman Riley Good's sacrifice fly to left plated redshirt freshman RJ Perucki in the fourth gave the Roadrunners a two-run advantage.
The series continues at 6 p.m. on Friday.
