SAN ANTONIO –A 13-run first inning fueled a season-best offensive onslaught in UTSA's 25-2 rout of Lamar Tuesday at Roadrunner Field.
Blasting a season-best five home runs, the Roadrunners improved to 14-19 on the season, while the Cardinals suffered their 23rd setback in 33 contests.
Not to be outdone by the offense, the pitching staff utilized six pitchers - Shane Daughety, Kyrell Miller, Cameron Carver, Zachary Griggs, A.G. Yowell and Hunter Grimes – limiting Lamar to two runs on five hits, fanning five and walking three.
Daughety earned the victory and improved to 2-2 on the season. He tossed three innings – predetermined – and allowed just one run on two hits, striking out one and walking one.
In his first appearance of the season, Miller allowed one walk in his one inning of work and retired the Cardinals on eight pitches – six strikes.
After falling behind 1-0 in the top of the first, UTSA responded by sending at least nine batters to the plate in three of the six innings – due to a seven-inning run rule – including the first when the Roadrunners sent 17 batters to the dish.
Every hitter reached safely the first time through the order and eight scored with the only out coming when Lamar executed a pick off. All told, 15 straight batters reached safely, scoring 13 runs on nine hits, four walks and two hit batsmen.
Bryan Sturges put the Roadrunners in front at 3-1 when he lifted a towering shot into the netting beyond the left field wall. Leading 10-1 after a single by Bryan Arias scored Ryan Stacy and Jonathan Tapia, Sturges put runners on the corners when he singled. Dylan Rock followed and unleashed a mammoth blast over the netting beyond the wall in left.
The 13 runs match a school record for one inning and is the most in nearly 10 years, when the Roadrunners tallied a 13-run sixth inning against the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (formally Texas-Pan American) in 2009.
Stacy and Arias delivered back-to-back homers in the second inning and Nick Thorquist followed three batters later with a two-run shot. UTSA sent nine batters to the plate and scored five runs on five hits, pushing the advantage to 18-1.
Despite loading the bases with two outs in the third, the Roadrunners were held off the board for the first and only time in the game.
Grimes delivered his career-high third RBI of the game with a two-out single in the fourth
With two outs and one on in the fifth, six consecutive Roadrunners reached, adding four more runs. For good measure, they added a two-out walk and back-to-back singles, plating runs 24 and 25 in the sixth.
The 25-run performance is the second-most in a single-game in school history, two short of the all-time school record.
UTSA hosts Old Dominion in a three-game series beginning at 6 p.m. Friday. Saturday's game is at 2 p.m. and the finale is at 11:30 a.m. Sunday.
