It seems that midseason for the Loyola men’s baseball team has arrived just on time: The temperature has drifted to the mid 70s, players have finished their midterms, and most tellingly, fatigue has beome a factor.
“In a weekend series, you play three games in 24 hours. That’s tough on anyone, even when you do have a lot of guys you can rest. So, from that standpoint, it’s going to take its toll the rest of the year,” said Loyola head coach Doc Beeman.
But on Sunday Loyola was the team that lasted the longest. The Wolfpack closed out a three game series in Mobile with a resounding 5-3 win, going 1-2 for the weekend, thus avoiding a sweep against the Spring Hill Badgers.
Mathematics sophomore Paul Neill threw six innings and gave up three runs on six hits while earning the win.
“We got a real pitching performance out of Paul Neill that day,” Beeman said of the second-year starter.
While the team may have dropped the first two games of the series, they seemed to have left them with momentum. After losing 7-3 on Saturday, Loyola scored three runs in the top of the 7th to push the first game of the doubleheader into extra innings. The team narrowly lost 7-6 on a single by Drew Sims of the Badgers in the bottom of the 10th, but at least they finished strongly enough to give the team confidence for the next game.
“That’s just the way it went,” Beeman said. “You know, extra innings on the road, you’re not going to get some calls that you want from the ump. When you’re on the road, you’ve got to win by two.”
“It is disappointing,” said mathematics freshman Kevin Fontenot, who plays outfield and pitches. The dual threat finished the weekend 2-for-7 with two runs and pitched four and two-thirds innings in relief while giving up three runs. “We were definitely in those other games. It’s nice to leave the series with a win, but you do feel disappointed.”
“Anytime you have an extra inning game and you have another one immediately following it, the team that jumps out generally will end up winning it,” Beeman said. And jump out they did. In the win, the ‘Pack scored four runs in the 3rd and never looked back. Defense continued to be an issue for the Wolfpack, but they did improve as the weekend went along. After committing eleven errors in the first two games, the team dug in and only allowed one in the win.
“You need to focus on stopping errors once you start getting two or three of them at once,” said transfer Josh Borges, business junior, who went 3-for-10 while batting in three runs and scoring two. “It’s all a mental game. If you get that out of the way, you can focus on winning.
“That last game we played more as a team. We got all the individual things, and we started playing more as a team. If we keep playing on like that I don’t see too many teams that are going to beat us.”
Loyola hopes to ride the momentum into the series this weekend against the University of Mobile. First pitch will be thrown at Kirsch-Rooney stadium at 6 p.m. tonight. The double-header Saturday starts at 2 p.m.
Chad Bower can be reached at [email protected].
Right fielder Josh Borges hurls a ball in play to the infield during a showdown against Spring Hill last weekend. The Wolfpack stole one game from the Badgers, avoiding a sweep thanks to a convincing 5-3 win. (Tyler Kaufman)
