Cowboys dropped finale, 5-4, by Bears

CONWAY, Arkansas – McNeese closed out its regular season with a 5-4 loss to Central Arkansas on Saturday as the two teams split the Southland Conference series.

The Cowboys (28-28, 21-18 SLC) will head into next week’s Southland Conference Tournament as the No. 7 seed.

McNeese finished the regular season with 64 points in the standings, following Abilene Christian (74), New Orleans (69), Southeastern Louisiana (67), Northwestern State (66), A&M-Corpus Christi (66), and Sam Houston (65). The Bearkats played Nicholls late on Saturday and with a win, will move ahead of SLU for third. NSU and AMCC had their entire four-game series canceled due to the weather.

Central Arkansas (54 points) needs a Lamar loss to UIW to clinch the No. 8 spot. Lamar was leading 8-1 in the fifth inning before a rain delay went into play Saturday afternoon.

Official seedings will be released by the league office late Saturday or on Sunday.

In Saturday’s finale, the Bears score single runs in the first, third and fifth innings to take a 3-0 lead off McNeese starter Ty Abraham.

McNeese got on the board in the sixth off a RBI single by Julian Gonzales that scored Tré Obregon, who two batters earlier, hit a one-out single and was followed by a single by Jake Dickerson, to cut the margin to 3-1.

UCA answered in the bottom of the inning after taking advantage of three walks and an infield single to go up 5-1.

That’s how things stayed until the Cowboys made a run in the eighth and cut the gap to 5-3.

Obregon and Dickerson led the inning off with back-to-back singles. A couple of outs later, Kade Morris would load the bases after getting plunked. That led to a two-run, Brett Whelton single to cut the UCA lead to 5-3.

In the ninth, Clayton Rasbeary started things off with his fifth triple of the season. That hit made him just the 11th player in school history to record 80 or hits in a season, tying him for 10th in school history with Kevin Mitchell (2001) with 80 base knocks.

Nate Fisbeck followed with his 16th double and 55th RBI of the season to pull McNeese to within 5-4, but after a UCA pitching change, reliever Brad Verel shut the door with three straight outs to pick up his first save of the season.