Pilots complete sweep over Blazers with 13-3 win
February 19, 2005
Shreveport, LA---The LSUS Pilots (9-2) and the Belhaven College Blazers (6-5) squared off in a three game series this weekend at Pilot Field to begin the 2005 Gulf Coast Athletic Conference season. In 2004 it was the Blazers who knocked off the Pilots in the GCAC Conference Tournament Championship Game, to denying the Pilots of their chance to defend their region XIV championship title. This weekend however was a different story as the Pilots combined two excellent pitching performances and some timely hitting Friday night to take games one and two, and exploded for 13 runs and 20 hits Saturday afternoon, taking game three by a final score of 13-3, to sweep the three game series.
In game three, the Blazers Ricky Owens led off the top of the second inning with a double down the left field off Pilots starting pitcher Tyler Lewis. David Gilbert followed with a sacrifice bunt that was dropped by the Pilots second baseman, Dustin Bissonnette, putting runners on the corners for the Blazers with no outs. Owens scored on a sacrifice fly off the bat of designated hitter Scott Ewing to give the Blazers a 1-0 lead. A Jonathon Robertson single followed by a walk to Chase Coley loaded the bases with one out. Lewis managed to get Blaise King to pop out to the pitchers mound for the second out of the inning, but followed with a bases loaded balk, allowing the Blazers second run of the inning to score. Lewis then walked Nick Brister, but managed to get Ricky Brazeal to ground out to short stop to end the inning.
Kyle Mace led off the Pilots half of the second with a single and later scored on a Brian Cooksey two out single up the middle, cutting the Belhaven lead to 2-1. After a scoreless third inning and Lewis holding the Blazers to no runs again in the fourth, the Pilots offense took over.
Brandon Magierowski led off the bottom of the fourth with a single, which was followed by a Derek Cunningham single up the middle. Cooksey followed with his second single of the game to load the bases for pinch hitter Patrick Thompson. Thompson dumped a fastball from Blazers starting pitcher Brad Fultz into shallow left field to tie the ball game at 2-2. Fultz then fell behind Pilots leadoff hitter Dusty Maddox who belted a 2-1 curveball over the left-center field fence for his second homerun of the season, giving the Pilots a 6-2 lead. Larkin Braxton came on in relief of Fultz and quickly found himself in trouble as Frye doubled to left-center and later scored on a Riley Cook double into right-center field, putting the Pilots up 7-2. Braxton was able to get Magierowski to ground out with runners on second and third which was followed by a fly ball to left field by Cunningham to end the Pilots 4th inning.
The Blazers threatened in the 5th inning and managed to push one run across when Buddy Wyrick doubled to right-center, scoring King who drew a lead off walk, to make it a 7-3 ballgame.
The Pilots scored three runs in the bottom of the 6th on a base clearing bases loaded double by Magierowski who collected 4 hits and 3 RBI in the game. LSUS tacked on two more runs in the bottom of the 8th when Cooksey singled home Magierowski and Cook, putting the Pilots ahead 13-3, causing the 10 run mercy rule to come in effect giving the Pilots their 9th win of the season.
Lewis (1-1) completed 6.0 innings allowing 5 hits, 3 runs, 4 walks, while striking out 3 gets credit for his first win of the season. The Pilots offense collected 20 total hits which included 4-5 performances by both Frye and Magierowski. Cooksey was 3-5 with 3 RBI, and Cook was 2-2 with a team high 3 runs scored.
Fultz suffered the loss in game three allowing 6 runs on 10 hits in 3.0 innings of work. Jonathon Robertson collected 2 of the Blazers 6 hits, while Scott and Brazeale collected one RBI each.
With the victory the Pilots improved to 9-2 on the year, and are currently in top spot in the GCAC at 3-0, while the Blazers dropped to 6-5 overall, and 0-3 in conference play. The Pilots will be in action again Tuesday night when they will travel to Longview, TX to take on La Tourneau University at 2:00pm.
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