HOUSTON – Sunday afternoon at Husky Field was a game of shifting momentum as HCU baseball fell behind by four before taking a three-run lead through innings and ultimately falling to New Orleans by an 11-7 final in the series finale of the teams' Southland Conference series.
In the top of the second, New Orleans (17-25, 7-14 SLC) put the first two runners on via a walk and a double, giving the Privateers two runners in scoring position with nobody out.
Ben Smith, in his first inning of relief for opener
Trent Barnes, struck out the next two batters and induced a pop-out to second to keep things at 0-0.
In the third, UNO's Miles Curley got the scoring started with a two-run home run over the left field wall. The Privateers doubled their lead in the third when a Josh Hoffmann single up the middle brought home two with one out for a 4-0 UNO lead.
With two outs in the bottom of the fifth, HCU (18-21, 10-11 SLC) right fielder
Rhett Hendricks singled through the left side with
Nico DeFazio drawing a walk to follow.
Preston Curtis then crushed the first pitch he saw 371 feet on a line over the left field fence for a three-run bomb that cut the UNO lead down to just one.
The next inning,
Jeremy Rader led off with a single, moving up to second on a
Luke Bard sacrifice bunt. Two hitters later, with two outs,
Anthony Avalos drove an 0-1 offering 380 feet to left that stayed inside the foul pole and put the Huskies ahead, 5-4.
DeFazio walked to lead off the seventh, prompting a Privateers pitching change. Facing reliever Jack Garvey, with an 0-2 count, Curtis pulled a double down the left field line to give HCU two runners in scoring position.
Jack Walker drew a walk to load the bases and Rader drove home another run with a sacrifice fly. Bard then drove home another run with a single through the left side, giving the Huskies a 7-4 lead through seven innings.
The Privateers began their comeback in the top of the eighth. Two walks, two hit batters and a wild pitch allowed two runs to score and put two runners in scoring position with nobody out. Dylan Biddick drove in two more runs with a one-out double, giving UNO an 8-7 advantage. The Privateers added three more in the ninth for the 11-7 final.
Avalos, Curtis and Rader all finished with two hits for the Huskies with Curtis going 2-for-4 with three RBI and two runs scored. His home run was his fifth of the year, tying him for the team lead, while his double was his eighth of the season. Avalos' home run was his second of the season as he went 2-for-4. DeFazio scored a pair of runs, going 1-for-2 at the plate while drawing two walks. The HCU shortstop is now batting .312.
Ben Norton took the loss for HCU, falling to 2-1 overall. The right-hander allowed three earned runs in one inning, giving up one hit while hitting two batters and walking one.
The Huskies are set to host a pair of midweek games this Tuesday, Apr. 21, and Wednesday, Apr. 22, against Prairie View A&M and Texas Southern with both games scheduled for 6:30 p.m. starts.
