Stephen F. Austin
Louisiana-Monroe
SFA Completes Sweep Of Warhawks
3/26/2008 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
March 26, 2008
NACOGDOCHES, Texas - SFA scored four runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to pull out a 7-5 win over Louisiana-Monroe in the second game of a two-game series on Wednesday at Jaycees Field.
The win is the third straight for SFA (11-11, 1-5) over ULM (14-8, 7-2 SBC) and gives the `Jacks 14 wins in its last 16 non-conference home games.
Jeremy Tamez pitched 2.1 innings of relief in his first career appearance for the win and Lance Luetge struck out the final batter of the game with the bases loaded for his first career save.
SFA gave starter Erich Lehmann a 2-0 lead after the first two innings, using a Matt Whatley RBI in the first inning and a Zach Gardner RBI single in the second frame to jump out in front. Lehmann was on point early, striking out the side in the first and retiring seven of the first eight batters he saw overall.
The `Jacks pushed another run across the board in the fourth inning when back-to-back doubles by Jeffrey Kello and Gardner put runners on second and third and Kai Kirby used a groundout to drive in Kello.
Lehmann continued to cruise, shutting out the Warhawks through five innings on only 60 pitches before he came back out in the sixth. Casey Auttonberry singled through the left side to lead off and Louie Lancaster got on one batter later when Lehmann had trouble fielding an attempted sacrifice bunt. Two batters later Jordy Poche singled through the middle to plate both runners and after Lehmann picked up his sixth and final strikeout it was Nick Maragas and Evan Saucier that drove him from the game with back-to-back RBI singles to give ULM its first lead at 4-3.
Tamez then enterd and weathered the storm before SFA retook the lead for good in the bottom of the seventh. Kai Kirby and Jeff Brewer led off the inning with consecutive bunt singles down the first-base line before Kevin Crabtree picked up his first hit of the day with a single to left-center field that drove in Brewer. Two hitters later Noel Trevino came through with a single under the glove of Poche at second base and drove in both Kirby and Crabtree to give SFA a 6-4 lead. Kevin Croft drove in the final insurance run with a sacrifice fly of his own.
Richard Folmer relieved Tamez to start the ninth inning and looked as though he was going to easily sail to his fourth save of the season after retiring the first two hitters; however, a single, hit by pitch and a walk followed and after Darren Sutton walked with the bases juiced to cut the score to 7-5, Donnie Watson decided it was time to try a fresh arm. Luetge then entered and struck Poche out swining on a 3-2 pitch to shut the door and earn the save.
SFA leaps back into conference play this weekend when it hosts a three-game series with Northwestern State beginning at 3:00 p.m. on Friday. Each of the three games can be heard on KSFA 860 AM.
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