TUCSON, Ariz. – The McNeese baseball team hung tough with one of the top collegiate clubs in the nation before the No. 7 Arizona Wildcats scored seven unanswered runs on its way to a 9-3 victory over the Cowboys in the opening game of the weekend series Thursday night.
The loss was the first of the season for McNeese as it fell to 4-1 overall while Arizona remained perfect at 5-0.
The two teams will be back in action tomorrow evening in round two of the four game series with the first pitch set for a 7 p.m. central standard time start.
The contest can be followed via live stats and a free live stream courtesy of Arizona by logging on to McNeeseSports.com and clicking the links under the baseball schedule page.
The Pokes lit up the scoreboard first following a pair of Arizona hiccups that led to
Robbie Podorsky and
Matt Gallier each plating a run to go up 2-0 over the Wildcats in the first inning.
Podorsky extended his hitting streak to a team-best four games after leading off the contest with a single up the middle.
Arizona scored six unanswered runs throughout the next five innings highlighted by a five-run fourth frame to take a 7-2 lead over the Cowboys. Two of the Wildcats runs were scored off of a McNeese wild pitch.
The Cowboys were guilty of having tossed four wild pitches throughout the night.
However, The Pokes kept up the fight and plated a run in the seventh thanks to
Shane Selman's double to left center that cut the Wildcats' lead to a 7-3 score.
Sophomore
Dustin Duhon led the hitting effort for the Cowboys with two hits in the game. Duhon now joins
Ricky Ramirez, Jr. as the only McNeese players to have recorded three multiple hit games this season.
Sophomore
Bryan King (1-1) took the loss after tossing 3.1 innings and surrendering four runs off of six hits and two walks. King struck out two batters.
Arizona's J.C. Cloney improved to 2-0 on the year after having worked 7.1 frames and gave up no earned runs. He fanned six Cowboy batters in the process and now has a 0.00 ERA through 14.1 innings pitched this season.
Arizona 9, McNeese 3 (Feb 23, 2017 at Tucson, Ariz.)
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McNeese............. 200 000 100 - 3 6 0 (4-1)
Arizona............. 100 510 02X - 9 12 2 (5-0)
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Pitchers: McNeese - King, Bryan; Wesley, Tyler(4); Anderson, Grant(5); Mize, Mason(8) and
Duhon, Dustin. Arizona - Cloney, JC; Faulkner, L.(8); Schnabel, A.(9) and Salazar, C..
Win-Cloney, JC(2-0) Loss-King, Bryan(1-1) T-2:51 A-1924
Weather: Clear, low 60s
