Let’s do it again: Cowboys, Cards to meet in tourney
Published 2:53 pm Monday, May 22, 2017
After a forgettable game on Friday, the McNeese State Cowboys reminded the rest of the Southland why they are the top team in the conference. The Cowboys run-ruled Lamar 16-6 to close out the regular season Saturday at Joe Miller Ballpark.
“The only thing we talked about was that this was the seniors’ last chance to play a home game here,” McNeese head coach Justin Hill said. “We knew that we wanted to play better than we did the day before.
“That is something that our team has done a real good job of all year long. I think that we have only lost back-to-back conference games once this year (Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, May 5-7).”
While the Cowboys (34-17, 22-8 SLC) won the three-game series, they are not done with the Cardinals (32-21, 16-14) just yet. They will meet up for the fourth time in less than a week, at 4 p.m. Wednesday in the first round of the conference tournament at Constellation Field in Sugar Land, Texas.
“It is going to be unique thing,” Hill said. “We are going to play them the first game of the series coming up.
“It is what it is. I don’t think there is any secrets. This weekend doesn’t have any effect on that other than where the seedings are. Our goal is just going to be to play well on Wednesday.”
While pitching has carried Cowboys in many games this season, they put on a hitting clinic Saturday with 17 hits and four home runs including a walk-off three-run blast by Shane Selman with one out in the bottom of the seventh.
Mitchell Rogers went 4-for-4 with a pair of home runs and three RBIs, Ricky Ramirez went 4-for-4 with two RBIs and Matt Gallier broke out of a 5-for-45 slump to go 3-for-4 with two RBIs. Joe Provenzano had the Cowboys’ other home run and finished with four RBIs.
“We had had moments when the pitching staff has carried us,” Hill said. “We are going to have some moments next week where the pitching staff will have to carry us.
“It is a bigger ballpark and the wind blows in. But we showed the ability hopefully as it gets deeper in the weekend we can swing the bats with the best of them. Our guys did a good job of putting pressure on them.”
The game started the same as Thursday’s 10-2 Cowboys victory with the Cardinals taking the lead in the top of the first on an RBI double by Robin Adames. McNeese took the lead the bottom of the second on Rogers’ first home run, but the Cardinals tagged Cowboys starter Bryan King for three runs in the top of the third to go up 4-2.
That prompted a pitching change with one out, which was exactly what as needed. Reliever Grant Anderson struck out the first two batters he faced and the offense responded with four runs in the bottom half the inning. Provenzano’s three-run home run put the Cowboys up for good.
Anderson (7-0) struck out six of the first 10 batters he faced. He allowed two runs on four hits over 32⁄3 innings. Senior Collin Kober pitched a scoreless seventh inning to finish off the Cardinals.
“I am really proud of what Grand Anderson did,” Hill said. “He hadn’t had that situation in a while but he came in and he was really good.
“Obviously, Kober came in and only had to use him for one inning with the way the situation worked out.”
Jimmy Johnson took the loss for Lamar after allowing six runs on seven hits in three innings.
Despite the win, the Cowboys were not perfect. King lasted 21⁄3 innings and has given up 19 runs in his last seven appearances. McNeese also had some base running issues and committed two errors.
“It was good ugly,” Hill said. “They had the infield back and Robbie (Podorsky) is at third with nobody out and he didn’t go. He came in and apologized to Dustin (Duhon) because it cost him an RBI.
“We just weren’t quite there. It wasn’t our best. Are we always going to play our best? No. But the desire to was there. We kicked double-play balls and there were some moments when Bryan could have got out of it but we found a way.”
