March 13, 2004

Box Score

Edinburg, Texas - The fans got their money worth at the Edinburg Baseball Stadium tonight. Texas-San Antonio (9-7) defeated Texas-Pan American (12-11) 3-1 in ten innings in a game of pitching. The pitchers gave up only eight hits in 66 at bats with 27 strike outs.

Texas-San Antonio started the second inning off with a triple to left center from Michael McKennon. Lee Todesco then doubled down the first base line to score McKennon and make it 1-0. That remained the score until the bottom of the fifth inning. Matt Sisk (Sr./Fort Worth, Texas/Arlington Heights HS) opened the inning with a walk. Matt Eichel (Jr./Grapevine, Texas/Grapevine HS) laid down a sacrifice bunt that moved Sisk to second. A ground out from Aaron Flowers (Jr./Rowlett, Texas/Northeast Texas CC) put Sisk in scoring position. With Ricky Broyles (Jr./Longview, Texas/Northeast Texas CC) at the plate, the pitch sailed past the catcher allowing Sisk to tie the game.

The Roadrunners opened the top of the tenth with a walk and an error that put Robbie Johns on second and Ryan Crew at first. A sacrifice bunt moved Johns to third and Crew to second. Sam Mitchell was intentionally walked to load the bases. Following a fly out, Chris Lewis walked to score Johns and put UTSA up 2-1. McKennon was hit by a pitch to push Crew across the plate for the final run of the game. In the bottom of the tenth, Eichel was hit by a pitch and was replaced by pinch runner John Lopez (Jr./Mission, Texas/Mission HS). Lucas Stewart struck out the next three Broncs to end the game.

For UTPA, Sisk was 3-for-3, scored a run and stole two bases while Louie Alamia (So./Edinburg, Texas/Edinburg North HS) scored a run and stole two bases. Alamia extended his hitting streak to 20 games and his reaching base safely streak to 34 games. Tommy Sorden (Sr./Austin, Texas/Navarro College) struck out a career-high 11 batters along with four hits, three runs, one earned run in nine and two-third innings. Sorden fell to 2-2 on the season.

For Texas-San Antonio, Johns scored one run and had 16 put outs while Crew and McKennon scored a run each. Steven Vasquez moved to 3-1 as he gave up four hits, one run and struck out a career-high 13 batters in nine innings. Stewart moved from the Designated Hitter position and struck out three batters in one inning for his second save of the season.

"Our offense just didn't get the job done." Said head coach Willie Gawlik. "Tommy pitched a great game. You can't ask for more than what he did tonight. We had guys in scoring positions several times and didn't get the job done. You cannot strike out 16 times in a game and expect to win."

Texas-Pan American and Texas-San Antonio wrap up the series on Sunday, May 14. The game is scheduled to start at 1:00 p.m.