LAKE CHARLES – The McNeese baseball team cracked out the brooms on and delivered a 7-1 victory over Arkansas-Pine Bluff and completed the series sweep on Sunday.
The Cowboys begins the season with a 3-0 mark for the second season in a row and have now won their first three contests in back-to-back years for the first time since the 2009-10 seasons.
"The goal for us today was to not be satisfied with winning the series but by going out and playing the game," said head coach
Justin Hill. "Arkansas-Pine Bluff is a very good team and also well coached. They play the right way and were a good challenge for our team."
Leading the charge at the dish was junior
Cameron Toole who finished 3-for-3 on the day with two RBI. Toole went 6-for-7 on the weekend that included two doubles, two runs and three RBI.
"I thought Cameron grew a lot for us last year and obviously you can see the product this season," said Hill. "He has matured over the last two years and is relaxed at the plate and understands what he is good at."
Toole was also outstanding behind the plate as he threw out five runners who attempted to steal over the weekend.
The McNeese pitching staff enjoyed an outstanding weekend at Cowboy Diamond and finished up on Sunday allowing just three batters over the minimum. The Cowboy hurlers combined for nine strikeouts and allowed just one earned run on two hits.
Sophomore transfer
Trent Fontenot impressed the McNeese faithful with his first start as a Cowboy as he turned in a quality start, the third-straight for the Pokes. Fontenot picked up the win after having worked six innings and allowed just one run to score in the first inning and gave up only two hits. He led the staff with five strikeouts on the day.
"Trent did well on the mound for us today," said Hill. "He came out a little excited at first but he did a great job of settling in along with our defense who played well behind him."
Following Fontenot's outing, a trio of relievers came in to hold the Lions scoreless. Junior-transfer
Tyler Day shutout the UAPB in the seventh with two strikeouts while freshman
Austin Briggs worked the eighth inning and allowed only one hit. Senior
Jacob Williams closed the game by not allowing a hit or a run with one strikeout.
UAPB (3-0) got on the board early following a ground out RBI from Robert Colon that gave the Lions their first lead in the series since the bottom of the fourth inning in Friday night's series opener.
The lead would only last half an inning as a wacky set of events enabled the Cowboys to tie the ballgame in the bottom of the second frame. Senior
Andrew Guillotte sent a chopper straight to the shortstop who elected to throw Toole out at third. In the meantime, sophomore
Matt Gallier took advantage of the play and scored from third and knot the score up at 1-1.
"It is one of those situations that you do not see that often but we were able to take advantage of a mistake and ran through hard to make the play," said Hill. "Cameron (Toole) did what he was supposed to allow Gallier to run home"
McNeese put its foot on the gas and never looked back as it opened up for six runs on six hits to extend its lead to a 7-1 mark that it would hold until the last pitch.
The inning opened up with a homerun from Guillotte, who belted a missile over the left field wall. The homer was Guillotte's third career tater. Two batters later, Crane sent a bomb over left center to open up the Cowboys' lead over UAPB. Crane finished his first collegiate series with six hits, two doubles, two homers, two RBI and a 1.077 slugging percentage.
McNeese also received RBI hits from Gallier and Toole who delivered a 2-RBI double late in the inning.
The Pokes return to action this week with two mid-week contests against Louisiana Tech on Feb. 17-18. The games are slated to begin at 1 o'clock each day.
McNeese 7, Arkansas-Pine Bluff 1 (Feb 15, 2015 at Lake Charles, La.)----------------------------------------------------------------------
Arkansas-Pine Bluff. 010 000 000 - 1 3 0 (0-3)
McNeese............. 010 060 00X - 7 14 0 (3-0)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Pitchers: Arkansas-Pine Bluff - ESTEP,Blake; WALSH,Kevin(5); FIGUEROA,Jerimiah(7);
RAMOS,Ciji(8); PHELPS,Chris(8) and DRURY,Colin. McNeese - Fontenot, Trent; Day, Tyler(7);
Briggs, Austin(8); Williams, Jacob(9) and Toole, Cameron.
Win-Fontenot, Trent(1-0) Loss-ESTEP,Blake(0-1) T-2:17 A-673
HR MCN - Guillotte, Andrew (1); Crane, Connor (2).
