SUGAR LAND, Texas – It was a battle neither the McNeese baseball team nor Southeastern Louisiana wanted to lose and both performed as so but eventually it was the second-seeded Lions who broke through in the final two innings and pulled out a 10-0 victory over the sixth-seed Cowboys in the second round of the 2016 Southland Conference Tournament at Constellation Field.
The two squads were nearly equal throughout the better half of Thursday night's contest as each fought to gain an edge over each other for over for the better part of seven innings. With either team able to score through seven, The Cowboys' pitching staff was in the midst of a 16 consecutive scoreless inning league tournament streak until the drought was stopped in the top of the eighth frame as the Lions opened up for six runs over a battled-tested and iron-hearted
Ethan Stremmel.
"I thought they (Southeastern Louisiana) put together a lot more quality at-bats than we did along with more base runners and more opportunities this afternoon," said head coach
Justin Hill. "You could see that we started to get going after it was almost too late. I think the elements played into it today. It seemed as though there was five outfielders out there but they had to play in the same conditions. They just had a little more than we did."
A one out, RBI-single opened things up in the frame for Southeastern as Webb Bobo launched a three-run home run deep over the right field wall of Constellation Field to push the lead to a 4-0 score in favor of SLU. The Lions would finish off the frame with another two-run hit for a six run lead over the Cowboys.
Southeastern pushed across four more runs in the final frame to go up by 10 over the Pokes.
With the loss, McNeese (30-24) must now win out the rest of the way for a chance at the conference tournament championship beginning with New Orleans in an elimination game Friday morning at 9 a.m. with the contest slated to be streamed live on ESPN 3.
Southeastern Louisiana continued in the winner's bracket after improving to 38-18 on the season.
Stremmel (4-2) was strong in his 11
th start of the season as he continued a dominant pitching effort through 7.1 scoreless frames. It wasn't until the eight until he gave up his runs as he fanned three batters and scattered eight hits along the way.
Lions starter Mac Sceroler (10-3) took the win following eight minutes of work in the game limiting the Pokes to just five hits and no runs while striking out nine and walking one batter.
"Credit to their pitcher who kept us off-balance," said Hill. "We did not get a whole lot of hard contact throughout the game. I think he adjusted what he was doing pitch-wise and we were not able to adjust from an offensive side. Obviously, the offensive side of adjustments are more difficult than the pitching side but he did a better job than we did on that side of things."
McNeese was led offensively in the game by senior
Lewis Guilbeau who hit twice while junior
Ricky Ramirez continued his hitting streak to 10 straight games on his eighth double of the season.
Southeastern La. 10, McNeese 0 (May 26, 2016 at Sugar Land, Texas)
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Southeastern La..... 000 000 064 - 10 14 0 (38-18)
McNeese............. 000 000 000 - 0 5 2 (30-24)
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Pitchers: Southeastern La. - Sceroler, Mac; Von Rosenberg, Gabe(9) and Roberson, Sam. McNeese -
Stremmel, Ethan; Anderson, Grant(8); Anderson, Aidan(9) and Toole, Cameron.
Win-Sceroler, Mac(10-3) Loss-Stremmel, Ethan(4-2) T-2:45 A-0
HR SLU - Bobo, Webb (7).
Weather: 81 deg, cloudy, SSE 12-14 mph
