Sugar Land, Tx. — The Southeastern University baseball team fell one game short of the Southland Conference Championship, losing to Central Arkansas 6-3 in 10 innings Saturday afternoon. The Lions took an early 1-0 lead in the bottom of the second inning, but the Bears answered back in the top of the third to tie the game at one. UCA took their first lead, going up 2-1 in the 4th, but Southeastern re-took the lead in the 5th. The game was tied at 3 through 9 innings and headed to extras, where the Bears scored 3 runs in the 10th, which ended-up being enough to win it and advance them to the championship game. UCA will face McNeese for the Southland Conference Tournament title at 6:00 p.m. (CT) later Saturday evening.
SLU (33-27) was led offensively by Kyle Schimpf, going 2-4 with 2 RBI and a run scored. Nathan Pilutti added two hits as well, as the only other Southeastern player with multiple hits. Tanner Wiley was a key piece for the Bears in this one, finishing the day 4-5 including a double, an RBI and 2 runs scored. They had 11 hits as a team to SLU’s 7.
On the mound, Conner Williams got the win for UCA, pitching 4 and a third in relief. He allowed no runs on 3 hits and struck-out 3. Jared Biddy was the losing pitcher for the Lions, throwing the final 4 innings, giving-up 4 runs and 5 hits and striking-out 4. SLU starter Corey Gaconi went 6 innings, giving-up 2 runs on 6 hits with 3 strike-outs.
Sun Belt Conference Update:
Conway, SC — In a weather delayed game that ended-up close to 6 hours, the University of Louisiana Monroe fell to Coastal Carolina 26-10, forcing a second game between the two teams shortly after in the Sun Belt Conference Baseball Tournament. The 10th-seeded Warhawks, who were (24-29, 12-17 Sun Belt) coming into the tournament, upset top-seeded Texas State 8-0 Wednesday, then knocked-off 4th-seeded UT Arlington 18-5 Thursday, punching their ticket to the tournament semifinals of the double elimination tournament. ULM led the Chanticleers 9-5 into the 5th inning when the weather delay began and after they resumed play, Coastal Carolina slowly closed the gap with 2 runs in the 6th and 3 more in the 7th. Then Coastal unloaded with 9 more runs in the 8th and 7 more in the 9th to stretch a 16-run lead that was too much for the Warhawks to overcome. Since that was ULM’s first loss of the tournament, the two teams have to play one more to decide who will advance to Sunday’s championship game against second-seeded Georgia Southern.