AUSTIN, Texas – Looking to pick up a win before heading into the holiday weekend, the LeTourneau University baseball team would be unable to put up enough offense in an 8-2 road loss to number 24 nationally-ranked Concordia University Texas at Tornado Field in Austin, Texas on Friday, April 19th.
LETU falls to 20-17 overall and 9-9 in the American Southwest Conference while the Tornadoes move to 27-9 overall and 13-5 in conference play to remain in the hunt for ASC Tournament hosting rights.
Both teams would try to figure things out in the early innings as the game would remain scoreless until the top of the third. The YellowJackets would get a leadoff single from
Eli Birriel and walk to put two runners on before a pair of groundouts would bring Birriel around to score and give LETU a 1-0 lead.
A one-out single and hit batter in the bottom of the third would put two runners on for the Tornadoes to make the most of a three-run home run as LeTourneau would face a 3-1 deficit heading to the fourth. CTX managed to add on two more runs in the bottom of the fourth with a two-out rally by putting together back-to-back hits and taking advantage of a throwing error to push their lead to four runs.
Following a fifth inning that saw the YellowJackets strand a pair of runners that would have cut the Concordia lead in half, LETU would get one run back in the top of the sixth by stringing together a two-out walk and pair of singles to score
Jacob Jones and force a Tornado pitching change. With a chance to cut further into the lead with runners on second and third, LeTourneau would end up stranding two more runners to end the inning and see momentum flip back over to CTX.
Things would remain a three-run deficit until the bottom of the eighth when Concordia would score three runs on two hits including a pinch-hit, two-RBI triple to break the game open and double their lead to 8-2. In similar fashion to yesterday's series opener, LETU would be unable to record a hit in the final three innings of action as the Tornadoes would take the victory.
LETU would be led by senior
Eli Birriel with two hits in four at-bats while also scoring a run as
Josh Raies,
Cody Lee and
Will Bradshaw each had one hit. The YellowJackets would see stranded base runners once again play a role in their defeat as seven base runners through the first six innings of play would prove to be costly in trying to mount a comeback.
What's Next?
LeTourneau will close out the regular-season at home next weekend against Texas-Dallas with a three-game ASC series kicking off at 7 p.m. on Friday, April 26th. After starting the season 9-16 overall, the Comets have won eight-straight games heading into this weekend's home series with Sul Ross State University with the winning streak including back-to-back ASC series sweeps.
