HOUSTON – HBU jumped out to an early lead and got a strong combined outing from three seniors pitchers for an 8-3 victory over Stephen F. Austin to clinch the Southland Conference series Friday afternoon at Husky Field.
Senior designated hitter
Matt Heck went 3-for-5 with a triple, drove in two runs and scored one, while junior centerfielder
Jonathan Ducoff went 2-for-5 with a double, three RBIs and scored for HBU (25-28, 17-12 SLC). Senior catcher
Jake Pulcheon went 3-for-5 with a triple and scored a run and sophomore third baseman
Elijah Simon drove in two and scored.
Lefthander
Matthew McCollough (8-3) was on a 50-pitch count, threw 3.2 shutout innings, allowing five hits and striking out one for the win. Righthander
Weston Smart allowed three runs, two earned, on three hits with two strikeouts in 4.1 innings of relief and righthander
Cameron Copeland threw five pitches for a perfect ninth.
Will Cerny homered and drove in a pair for SFA (17-35, 9-20).
Sean Beasley (2-4) allowed five runs on 10 hits with four strikeouts and three walks in five innings and Cole Ridgely gave up three runs, one earned, on two hits with two walks in 1.1 innings.
Halloran doubled, then Heck followed with a triple to put the Huskies on the board in the bottom of the first.
Senior second baseman
Jack Fitzgerald led off the third with a walk, then senior shortstop
Tyler Depreta-Johnson doubled to left. Ducoff then ripped a two-run double down the leftfield line and scored on an RBI single by Heck for a 4-0 lead.
Simon walked to lead off the fourth, Fitzgerald reached on an infield single, then Ducoff delivered an RBI single to left.
Cody Williams singled to lead off the fifth for SFA, stole second and went to third on an error on the play, then scored on a sacrifice fly by Jake Georgiades to make the score 5-1.
The Huskies scored three in the seventh when Heck reached on an error and Pulcheon singled. After junior pinch hitter
Jake Scott drew a walk to load the bases, Simon delivered a two-run single to left and Depreta-Johnson's sacrifice fly extended HBU's lead to 8-1.
Cerny hit a two-run home run to right for the Lumberjacks in the eighth to cap the scoring.
The series concludes with a 1 p.m. first pitch Saturday and the YouTube video broadcast with
Russ Reneau begins with the pregame show at 12:50 p.m. and is available on HBUHuskies.com. HBU will honor 14 seniors prior to the game, with the ceremony beginning at 12:30 p.m.
