Feb. 21, 2004

Huntsville, Texas - Sam Houston State (3-2-1) made it two in a row with a 10-5 win over UTPA (6-7) today. The series will conclude tomorrow afternoon.

The scoreboard was quiet until the third inning. Ben DiOrio (Sr./Canon City, Colo./Seward County CC) opened the inning with a double. The pitcher then misplayed the ball hit by Aaron Flowers (Jr./Rowlett, Texas/Northeast Texas CC). The end result was DiOrio scored and Flowers ended up at third. An error by the third baseman, allowed Flowers to score and Ricky Broyles (Jr./Longview, Texas/Northeast Texas CC) to reach first. Tony Ortiz (Jr./Fort Worth, Texas/Nolan HS) singled and sacrifice fly put runners on the corners. A wild pitch allowed Broyles to cross the plate. The Bearkats came back in the bottom of the third as a sacrifice fly scored Carrol Kelly.

In the bottom of the fifth, Sam Houston State broke the game open. The Bearkats used four walks, a passed ball and three hits to score six runs and take a 7-3 lead. UTPA scored a run in the seventh and the ninth but SHS scored three in the bottom of the seventh.

For UTPA, Louie Alamia (So./Edinburg, Texas/Edinburg North HS) was 3-for-5 with a triple to extend his hitting streak to 10 games. He has also reached base safely in his last 23 games. DiOrio was 2-for-4 and Ryne Foster (Fr./Cedar Park, Texas/Cedar HS) was charged with the loss.

For Sam Houston State, Kelly was 3-for3 and scored three runs while Roy Merritt was 2-for2 with three RBI's. Casey Springer gave up six hits, four runs and struck out six in six and two-third innings for his first win.

"We just couldn't find the strike zone in the fifth inning and that was the game." Said head coach Willie Gawlik. "It's tough when you're throwing around the plate and you can't seem to get it in there. You have to score a lot of runs to have a chance and we didn't score enough. Tomorrow the sun is going to come up and we need to go out and play hard. We just need to execute both offensively and defensively and get the job done."