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WICHITA, Kan. — The No. 5 St. Mary's Rattlers showed a flare for the dramatic Friday.
St. Mary's Baseball used the top of the seventh inning to score its one and only run in a 1-0 victory over Newman in a seven-inning Game 1 of a doubleheader, and then proceeded to go extra innings with the Jets in a 4-3, 10-inning triumph.
Ivan Sigala (Sr., El Paso, Texas) scored the decisive run in the opener on a fielding error on the heels of an
Al Gonzalez (RS-Fr., Pasadena, Texas) single, while
Brandon Bates drove in the winning run in the nightcap on an RBI-double in the top of the 10th.
Carl O'Neal (Sr., San Antonio) picked up the Game 1 win to improve to 7-1 on the season, while reliever
Jonathan Perez (Sr., San Antonio) pitched two innings to pick up the Game 2 win, improving to 4-2 on the year.
With the wins, St. Mary's improved to 19-9 overall and 15-5 in Heartland Conference play, moving two games in the win column past St. Edward's (13-5) for first place in the league standings.
The Rattlers totaled just four hits in the opener, two of which came from Sigala. The third baseman-turned-shortstop went 2 for 1 with a walk and a run scored.
In Game 2, St. Mary's used a three-run fourth inning to take a 3-0 lead that held until the sixth, when the Jets (9-10) answered with a pair of runs. Newman tied the score at 3-3 in the eighth, forcing the Rattlers into late-game heroics to get the win.
Gonzalez, Bates and
Mario Maldonado (So., Laredo, Texas) each had two hits apiece in the game, with Gonzalez driving in a pair of runs on his 2-for-3 outing.
St. Mary's will wrap up the three-game series at 12 p.m. Saturday in Wichita.
St. Mary's University, as a Catholic Marianist University, fosters the formation of people in faith and educates leaders for the common good through community service, integrated liberal arts and professional education, and academic excellence. The University has six athletic national titles: men's basketball (1989–NAIA), baseball (2001–NCAA Div. II), softball (1986–NAIA and 2002–NCAA Div. II) and an individual national champion in men's golf (2006–NCAA Div. II) and a national academic championship in men's golf (2009–NCAA Div. II). St. Mary's also had more than 40 percent of its athletes named to conference, regional and/or national honor rolls this past year. St. Mary's student–athletes graduation rate is 65 percent, higher than the NCAA Division II average of 55 percent. To learn more about St. Mary's, visit www.rattlerathletics.com.
