FAU edges LA Tech in 10 innings to take series

BOCA RATON, Fla. — Louisiana Tech infielder/pitcher Ethan Bates hit a line-drive home run well over the fence in right to lead off the 10th inning, but Florida Atlantic scored two runs on three walks and a single in the bottom of the frame to win a back-and-forth game, 12-11.

FAU captured the rubber game of the three-game Conference USA series on a balmy Mother’s Day Sunday afternoon at FAU Stadium.

FAU won 9-5 Friday, and Tech beat the Owls 12-6 in 16 innings Saturday, a contest that tied for the second-longest in Tech Baseball program history.

Tech is 26-27 overall and FAU is 30-22. In CUSA, both teams are 14-13, in the middle of the league standings and assured of making the conference tournament, scheduled to begin Wednesday, May 24, at 9 a.m. at Reckling Park in Houston on the campus of Rice University.

Tech’s regular season is scheduled to end this week against CUSA’s second-place team, UTSA, with games Thursday and Friday at 6 and Saturday at noon at J.C. Love Field at Pat Patterson Park.

“You score 11 on Sunday, you should win,” Tech coach Lane Burroughs said. “I’m proud of our offense; they kept fighting all game long.

“It’s disappointing. One more weekend to play and then we go to the tournament.”

Sunday’s was a seesaw game to say the least. The Bulldogs trailed 1-0 after the first inning, led 4-1 in the top of the second, trailed 5-4 after two, led 7-5 in the top of the fourth, were tied at 7-7 after the bottom of the fourth, trailed 10-7 after six, tied it 10-10 in the top of the eighth, and led 11-10 going into the bottom of the 10th.

Tech’s fourth pitcher of the day, Greg Martinez relieved in the eighth and took the loss. The righthander pitched a scoreless eighth and ninth but walked the first three batters in the 10th and then surrendered a two-run single to FAU All-America first baseman Nolan Schanuel that ended the second extra-inning game of the series in as many days.

“Our pitching staff was pretty much running on fumes,” Burroughs said. “We felt Greg was our best option; he’d just pitched two scoreless innings. Just didn’t get it done.

“We got only one shutdown inning all day,” he said. “You walk three guys and you’ve got the best hitter in the country coming up, you’re probably not gonna win the ballgame. Tough way to lose.”

For Tech, both Adarius Myers and Logan “McDefense” McLeod had two-RBI doubles in the second and Dalton Davis hit a three-run homer, his second opposite field homer of the series, in the fourth and a run-scoring double in the eighth when the Bulldogs tied the game, 10-10, on a Jorge Corona sacrifice fly.

Voted the best defender in the league last season, McLeod went 4-for-5 with two RBIs and two runs scored playing “with basically a broken hand,” Burroughs said, after the third baseman got hit by a pitch Saturday. Davis was 2-for-5 with four RBIs and two runs scored, and shortstop Will Safford scored a pair of runs.

Neither starter, Tech’s Ryan Harland nor FAU’s Nicholas Del Prado, made it out of the second inning. FAU’s Braden Ostrander, 2-0 and the Owls’ seventh pitcher of the day, relieved in the 10th, threw 10 pitches, and was the good-luck winner.