Louisiana Tech (14-14, 4-5) lost to Dallas Baptist in a three-game C-USA series this past weekend. The Bulldogs took the Friday game 5-2, before losing 14-7 and 9-1 on Saturday and Sunday.
GAME ONE | Defensive masterclass lifts Bulldogs over Pats 5-2.
WIN | Jonathan Fincher (5-2) LOSS | Ryan Johnson (3-2)
The Diamond Dogs started off the crucial series versus Dallas Baptist with an impressive victory over DBU. The Patriots threatened to come back multiple times throughout the contest, but the stout Bulldogs’ defense locked in and played to their full potential.
Senior LHP Jonathan Fincher gave Tech 6.0 quality innings as well as 7 strikeouts in the contest. After giving up a homer during DBU’s second at-bat of the day, Fincher would only allow one run on a sacrifice fly after that point.
After Fincher exited, Landon Tomkins lasted 1.1 innings and threw 2 strikeouts for the Bulldogs before the clutch Ethan Bates came in to seal the deal for Tech and earn his 5th save of the season.
Adarius Myers and Philip Matulia came up with some extremely difficult catches in the outfield to greatly assist in holding the Patriots to 2 runs on the afternoon.
The Bulldogs struck first in the 3rd inning where Will Safford led off with a double and Dalton Davis score him in on a single to left field. Later in the inning, Brody Drost hit a timely single to the left infield, scoring Philip Matulia to give Tech a 2-1 lead.
Fincher held off the Patriots in the top of the 4th, leading to Walker Burchfield hitting a bomb to another dimension on a 0-2 count to extend the Bulldogs’ lead to 3-1 over DBU.
In the bottom of the 5th, it was Dalton Davis who hit a solo homer to boost the Louisiana Tech lead to 4-1.
DBU would get a run back in the 6th, and the score stayed at 4-2 going into the bottom of the 8th. With two outs, Logan McLeod stepped up and hit a huge single up the middle to score Drost and give the Bulldogs a 5-2 cushion.
Bates took it from there, killing any potential chance of a Patriots’ rally, resulting in an enormous 5-2 Louisiana Tech win over Dallas Baptist on Friday.
GAME TWO | Bulldogs give up five homers, lose 14-7 to Patriots.
WIN | Brady Rose (3-0) LOSS | Reed Smith (1-3)
Jorge Corona had a stellar performance defensively on Saturday, throwing out two runners attempting to steal bases early in the game. DBU came into the series 12th in the nation in stolen bases, and Corona greatly reduced any chance Patriot base runners had of moving up the leaderboard this weekend.
The Diamond Dogs’ offense exploded in the 3rd inning, scoring 5 runs and leading the Patriots 5-1. Ethan Bates got the action going with a sacrifice fly where two DBU outfielders collided and allowed Logan McLeod to score the first Tech run of the game.
Philip Matulia got the fans amped up with his 10th home run of the year over the right field wall. Dalton Davis would score later in the inning on a Corona RBI single before Brody Drost boomed a two-run home run to give the Bulldogs a 5-1 advantage.
The Patriots would narrow the lead to 5-4 in the bottom of the 5th before Matulia blasted his second homer of the game and the 11th of the season.
After the 5th inning, it was total domination by the Patriots. Dallas Baptist hit a two-run homer as well as a solo home run in the 6th to gain a 7-6 lead going into the 7th.
Neither team was able to score in the 8th, but in the 9th DBU tacked on 5 more runs on a grand slam and a solo homer to all but seal the deal. Tech was only able to answer with one run in the bottom of the inning of a Matulia RBI, resulting in a 14-7 loss to DBU.
GAME THREE | Bulldogs shut down by Patriots, lose series finale 9-1
WIN | Bryson Hammer (4-3) LOSS | Greg Martinez (0-1)
On Sunday, the Bulldogs were limited to only five hits and one run in the afternoon by Dallas Baptist.
DBU DH Ethan Mann had a career day hitting three home runs including a three-run homer in the 1st, a solo homer in the 4th, and a two-run homer in the 9th to finish with 6 RBIs.
Down 0-4, the Bulldogs answered back on an RBI single from Walker Burchfield to score Jorge Corona and cut the lead to 4-1. The Patriots would go on to add four more runs, winning the series final 9-1.
Lane Burroughs after the game, “I’m not sure we’ll face a better pitching staff the rest of the year. Sometimes you have to tip your cap to the other team; the last two days, they were better than we were.”
Louisiana Tech and Dallas Baptist will face off for their second weekend series of the year starting on April 21st in Dallas.
C-USA Standings
1) UTSA (8-1)
2) DBU (6-3)
3) FAU (5-4), MTSU (5-4), Rice (5-4), Charlotte (5-4)
4) Louisiana Tech (4-5)
Up Next
On Tuesday, Louisiana Tech will travel to Natchitoches to face off against the Northwestern State Demons (15-12) in a one-game matchup.
First pitch is scheduled for 6 pm on Tuesday night.
The game can be listened to on Sportstalk 97.7 FM.
