Box Score
LAREDO, Texas — St. Mary's
Derek Moczygemba returned to the baseball diamond in grand fashion Saturday.
The St. Mary's left fielder missed the opening day of the Rattlers' series against Texas A&M International on Friday to stay back in San Antonio to present a senior design project for his engineering degree.
But he was back Saturday, leading St. Mary's past TAMIU 7-2 for the series sweep. He went 3 for 5 with one home run, three runs scored and an RBI at the plate to go along with one scoreless inning on the mound.
Carl O'Neal (Sr., San Antonio) got the victory to improve to 11-2 on the season, while closer
Jonathan Perez (Sr., San Antonio) picked up his 10th save of the season after closing out the game's final two innings.
St. Mary's (33-12, 28-7 Heartland Conference) jumped to a quick lead in the first, as
Brandon Bates (Sr., Boerne, Texas) drove in Moczygemba (Sr., Bulverde, Texas) on a groundout to second for a 1-0 advantage.
Billy Richard (Sr., Schertz, Texas) singled up the middle moments later, bringing in
Ivan Sigala (Sr., El Paso, Texas) to stretch the lead to 2-0.
TAMIU cut it to 2-1 in the bottom of the first, but the Rattlers answered the run in the second, as
Scott Slusher (Sr., Grapevine, Texas) brought in
Al Gonzalez (RS-Fr., Pasadena, Texas) on a groundout to the shortstop.
Mocyzgemba scored again in the third, pushing the Rattlers' lead to 4-1 after crossing home on a double-play ball hit by Bates.
Moczygemba struck once again in the fifth, launching a solo blast — his third of the year — to put St. Mary's up 5-2 to essentially put the game out of reach.
Sigala went 2 for 3 with two runs scored, while Richard went 2 for 4 with a pair of RBIs. Gonzalez went 3 for 5 on the day, driving in one and scoring another.
St. Mary's will close out the regular season by hosting McMurry next week in a series that begins at 4 p.m. Thursday at Wolff Stadium.
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.
