TYLER, Texas – The St. Mary's Baseball Team hung on to win a wild scoring campaign on Sunday at Texas-Tyler, winning 12-11 in a four hour, 19 minute marathon.
The Rattlers (22-15, 19-14 Lone Star Conference) jumped out to a 9-0 lead, but saw the Patriots (23-14, 21-12 Lone Star) battle all the way back to take an 11-10 lead before the Gold & Blue scored two in the top of the ninth for the 12-11 victory. St. Mary's has now won four-straight series against league opponents with one week left in the regular season and they've won 11 of the last 13 games.
Both junior
Jake Mares (Fort Worth, Texas) and sophomore
Brandon Broughton (Corpus Christi, Texas) tallied three hits on the day, with Broughton leading the game with four home runs. The top four hitters in the lineup recorded eight of the team's 14 hits and senior
Fernando Zubia (El Paso, Texas) – hitting third – walked three times.
Senior
Derek Mueller (Carrolton, Texas) was 2-for-4 with a pair of walks to extend his reached base safely streak to 29 contests and he's currently riding a 13-game hitting streak.
The Rattlers used four different pitchers and freshman
Logan Taylor (Adkins, Texas) won his first collegiate game, giving up just one hit and two walks while striking out four in the last two innings of his seventh appearance. Fellow freshman
Karlo Kalifa (Round Rock, Texas) started on the bump and lasted four innings, while freshman
Justin Ortega (San Antonio) worked one frame and senior
Johnny Hernandez (El Paso) pitched two. Hernandez also drove in two runs, playing second base the other seven innings.
Mueller walked to start the game, stole second and hustled to third on a single to left by Mares. They both scored on a home run to left by Broughton for the 3-0 advantage. It was the fourth home run of the season for the first baseman.
Kalifa faced the minimum in the bottom of the first after junior catcher
Brian Juarez (Corpus Christi) threw out a runner trying to steal second and got his offense right back to work.
With two outs in the second, junior
Ryan McGowen (San Antonio) beat out an infield single and moved to second on a wild pitch. Mueller walked and Mares singled to right center to score McGowen. A double steal moved Mueller and Mares up 90 feet and both scored on a single to left by Zubia for the 5-0 lead.
Sophomore
Mauro Bustamante (Helotes, Texas) singled to short stop, stole second and moved to third on a flyout by Hernandez. Juarez singled through the right side for the sixth run of the contest.
With two outs in the fourth, Broughton doubled to left center and senior
Mitchell Caskey (Houston) singled down the right field line. Bustamante was hit by a pitch and Hernandez singled to center, scoring two to bring the lead to 9-0.
The Patriots broke onto the scoreboard with two runs in the bottom of the fourth on three singles, a hit batter and a walk. UT-Tyler added five more in the fifth to close within two, 9-7.
Zubia and Broughton walked to start things in the sixth and with one out, Bustamante also drew a base on balls to load the bases. Hernandez hit a sacrifice fly to centerfield and all three runners advanced to push the lead back to three, 10-7.
The Patriots scored the next four runs with one in the sixth, two in the seventh and one in the eighth to take the 11-10 advantage.
In the top of the ninth, the Rattlers again took advantage of a two-out rally. Mueller singled up the middle and he bolted to third on a single to right by Mares. Mares stole second and Zubia walked to load the bases. Broughton was hit by a pitch to knot the score and sophomore
Jake Sims (San Antonio) reached on an error by the short stop to plate Mares for the winning run.
St. Mary's will host Arkansas-Fort Smith in the final regular season series of the year beginning on Friday at 3 p.m. and concluding with a doubleheader on Saturday starting at 2 p.m.
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