SFA Erases Five-Run Deficit with Six-Run Seventh in 6-5 Win over Portland

Thursday, February 28

Nacogdoches, Texas

6:30 p.m.

Stephen F. Austin

4-5

Portland

6-3

Portland

Stephen F. Austin

Photo by: SFA Athletics

SFA Erases Five-Run Deficit with Six-Run Seventh in 6-5 Win over Portland

2/28/2019 10:26:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score

Monacy comes up with go-ahead single, Stobart dazzles in relief

By: Charlie Hurley | Director of Athletic Media Relations

NACOGDOCHES, Texas - As the temperatures at Jaycees Field plummeted with each passing inning, the SFA baseball team's bats grew hotter and hotter and at the end of the night the 'Jacks found themselves with another thrilling comeback victory in hand.

Trailing 5-0 headed to the bottom of the seventh, SFA sent 10 men to the plate and scored six hits on seven runs to come back and win the series opener, 6-5, against Portland Thursday night.

Junior first baseman Jordan Monacy completed the comeback bid with his two-out, two-run single in SFA's six-run seventh to give the home team its first lead of the night. On the hill, left-hander Jacob Stobart kept Portland guessing by racking up eight of SFA's 15 strikeouts through his 3 1/3 innings of action.

SCORING SUMMARY
T1 | Two-out hitting allowed the Pilots to jump out to an early lead. Daniel Lopez started the visitors' two-hit frame with a one-out double before SFA starter Seth Campbell issued his first walk of the game with a pair of outs. From there, Hunter Montgomery pounced on the first pitch he saw from Campbell and drove a three-run homer over the fence in left.

T4 | Portland added to its lead with more extra-base hitting in the visitors' portion of the fourth. Montgomery started the frame with a double to the gap in left-center and moved to third on a sacrifice bunt. From there, Jace McKinney did the rest with a two-out double that pushed the Pilots' lead to 4-0.

T7 | Henry Cheney's leadoff single turned into the Pilots' fifth and final run of the game. Following his single, Portland's lone non-extra-base hit of the night, a wild pitched moved Cheney over to second before an errant throw by Manny Vasquez with one out allowed the outfielder to come home.

B7 | All the offense the 'Jacks needed to post its second-straight win came in the seventh. Vasquez and Josh Campbell launched back-to-back solo homers off of Portland starter Eli Morse before Jarrod Huber and Antonio Lima kept the line moving with consecutive singles. That signaled the end of Morse's outing, but the 'Jacks bats did not cool off once the Pilots turned to their bullpen. Brandon Uhse punched an RBI single through the Pilots' infield on a 1-1 offering from Christian Peters to pull SFA within two. From there, Sean Moore kept the 'Jacks' comeback chances intact with an RBI single that scored Uhse and cut the Pilots' lead to one. That set up Jordan Monacy who completed the comeback with a two-run single down the right field line to account for the final margin.

AT THE PLATE
• Seven of SFA's nine hits came in the game-changing seventh inning. Before he went yard to start the frame, Vasquez has accounted for SFA's lone hit in through the first six frames - a single through the right side in the home half of the second.
• Vasquez and Huber were the only two SFA players who enjoyed multi-hit nights. They each went 2-for-4 with a run scored
• Two of the Pilots' five hits came courtesy of Montgomery who went 2-for-4 with a home run, a double and three RBI.

ON THE MOUND
• Though the Pilots were able to score five runs off of the 'Jacks' arms, SFA's pitching staff was highly effective in the win. In all, a trio of Lumberjacks combined to rack up 15 strikeouts - a staff-high for a single game in 2019 - with Stobart contributing a career-high eight of them in 3 1/3 frames of relief.
• As a result of his strong relief effort, Stobart (1-0) picked up his first pitching win in a Lumberjack uniform. Jeremy Rodriguez fired two flawless innings to lock up his first save in an SFA uniform.
• Seth Campbell totaled five strikeouts of his own during his 3 2/3 innings of work to begin the game. The senior southpaw gave up four of the Pilots' five hits and four of their five runs but did not play a part in the final decision.
• Peters (0-1) was hit with the loss after giving up three of SFA's nine hits and the 'Jacks' final two runs. Morse struck out seven batters in six innings of work for a Portland squad who came into the game with a staff ERA of just 2.28 which ranked as the 24th-best in the nation.

CARDENAS' COMMENTS
...about Seth Campbell's start and Jacob Stobart's relief outing | "Seth did a good job. The start that he had, he would have liked for it to have gone a little better but he battled through it. It has been a long time since he has had to be back on the mound in a game situation for an extended period of time and I think he did a good job of getting us to the point where we could get another arm in there and extend the game for us. Jacob Stobart came in did a good job of going in there and just absolutely shutting their offense down and just really pitching down in the zone and giving us a chance to keep coming back at them. Once we were able to get a second and third look at their pitcher, that was the difference in the game."
...on getting to Portland starter Eli Morse in the bottom of the seventh | "Early on we noticed that everything was down in the zone with him or moving down after starting up in the zone. He has some pitches that break hard in and hard away and he was keeping us baffled the whole time. The approach that we made in the seventh was that we were going to make him elevate some pitches before we got a swing on them. We finally got some pitches up in the zone and we didn't miss them."
...on the comeback as a whole | "This kind of makes up for the couple of games we gave away in the last couple of weeks. Our guys did a good job of staying with the approach and staying positive. Jacob gave us the opportunity for our offense to get some traction and once we got some traction and got to their bullpen our guys got excited and had some really tough at-bats."

ON DECK
• The 'Jacks and Pilots continue their four-game series Friday evening at 6:30 p.m. from Jaycees Field. Right-hander Alex Palmer (0-0, 3.60 ERA) is scheduled to get the start on the mound for SFA as they try to capture the program's first victory over Portland.

-SFA-