MARSHALL, Texas – Completing another regional series sweep, the East Texas Baptist University baseball team will close out their 11-game home stand hosting conference rival LeTourneau University this weekend. Currently 19-9 overall and 8-4 in the American Southwest Conference, the Tigers have won seven of their last eight games at home and are also in a stretch where they have won 15 of their last 19 games.
ETBU won their sixth consecutive series in a row by defeating Southwestern University in non-conference play. Despite dropping the first game 13-0, ETBU recovered to win the next two games by outscoring the Pirates 18-4. In game two's 6-3 win,
Dylan Sumpter (two hits, two RBI),
Seth Mikeska (two hits, three RBI), and
Landen Barns would each homer late in the game giving reliever
Alek Arellano his third win of the season and
Chad Boudreaux his third save.
Adrian Stover would pitch all seven innings of ETBU's 12-1 game three win while Barns led the offense with a two-hit, three-RBI performance.
Head coach
Jared Hood said this about the series against Southwestern, "The game two starter we faced was a quality arm. He was throwing upper 80s and probably touching 90 miles per hour but he would throw sliders in for strikes and just really kept us off balance. During the seventh inning and eighth inning, we were able to make an adjustment and fired on the breaking ball. We saw some benefit for it. We got some good pitches to hit a long way, especially with the way the wind was blowing on Friday night. It was really great for us to bounce back from that and scratch out a win."
Barns leads the team with a .402 batting average while he and
Casey Combs (30 RBI, nine homers) each have 41 hits. Mikeska shares the home run lead with nine homers along with Combs. On the mound,
Derrick Findley still has six wins to lead the team while Stover has a team low 1.14 ERA.
This week will see the Tigers battle the Yellow Jackets of LeTourneau at Woods Field. In two games last season, ETBU split with LETU winning 2-1 in Marshall while falling 6-4 in Longview. LETU is 16-11 overall and 6-3 in the ASC after dropping two of three from Louisiana College. Brandon Ramirez has the highest batting average hitting .356 with 32 hits while Bryce Brueggemeyer contributes 24 RBI and seven homers on the year. When it comes to pitching, Raul Martinez (3.27 ERA) and Andrew Harland (6.00 ERA) have three wins on the season while Kolton Eberland collects four saves.
The series starts on Friday with a double header at 4:00 PM and 6:30 p.m. while Saturday has a 1:00 PM.
