BATON ROUGE, La. – The Alabama State baseball team lost its opening game of the 2012 SWAC Baseball Tournament, falling 14-4 in seven innings to Prairie View A&M.
The Hornets (20-35) will play in an elimination game Thursday at Noon against the loser of Wednesday night's Jackson State-Texas Southern game. Prairie View (25-22) will play the winner of the JSU-TSU game Thursday at 6 p.m.
With Alabama State leading 4-3 in the bottom of the seventh inning, a Hornets' error that was a potential double-play grounder was the first of three ASU errors in the inning. Prairie View scored 11 runs in the inning, erasing a 4-3 deficit to win the contest via 10-run rule.
“There are a lot of things we can attribute this loss to,” head coach
Mervyl Melendez said. “A lack of execution in a lot of areas – we couldn't execute a bunt offensively among several things. I thought our starting pitching did a much better job than that the box score shows. It's disappointing.”
Alabama State took a 1-0 lead in the first inning on a two-out single by
Darrion Pedro, scoring
Richard Gonzalez who singled with two out.
After the Panthers tied the score in the home first, Alabama State regained the lead in the third. A two-out, two-run double by
Waldyvan Estrada just inside the third-base line scored Gonzalez and
Jordan Mims.
Prairie View tied the score with single runs in the third and fourth innings, Alabama State regained the lead in the sixth inning, 4-3, as Estrada scored on a throwing error.
Gonzalez went 2-for 3 with two runs scored, and Estrada had a pair of RBI for the Hornets.
PEDRO, GONZALEZ NAMED SECOND TEAM ALL-SWAC: Pedro and Gonzalez were each named second-team All-SWAC as the all-conference team was announced today.
