Louisiana Tech completes weekend sweep of FIU

RUSTON – Louisiana Tech scored in each of the first five innings and never trailed in a 10-5 win over FIU that gave the Bulldogs a three-game series sweep of the Panthers before 1,797 on a breezy blue-skied Sunday afternoon at J.C. Love Field at Pat Patterson Park.

The sweep came on the heels of a worrisome 2-6 streak, including a pair of lackluster midweek performances.

“As bad as we’ve been, we’re 9-6 in (Conference USA) and all we set out to do is right in front of us,” Tech coach Lane Burroughs said. “Proud of how our guys responded. We needed this; we’ve got a tough week ahead and need to keep it going.”

The Bulldogs, 19-18, host old rival Southern Miss Tuesday at 6 p.m. before going to Dallas Baptist for games Friday (6:30 p.m.), Saturday (2 p.m.) and Sunday (1 p.m.).

Against FIU and a program from their hometown, Miami natives Nick Fraginals (1-1), a freshman righthander, and junior catcher Jorge Corona enjoyed memorable afternoons. Fraginals pitched 1.1 innings and picked up the first win of his Bulldog career, and Corona, who was a triple shy of hitting for the cycle, knocked in two runs and threw out a baserunner.

Tech starter Alec Sparks gave up two runs in 3.2 innings, Fraginals gave up one, Ryan Harland gave up a pair of runs in two innings and Landon Tomkins pitched the final two scoreless innings. Tomkins got the final out in the ninth when he punched out the Panthers cleanup hitter with runners at the corners.

“I know they’re sore and we asked a lot of them, but with the wind blowing out, we had to ride them and they posted,” Burroughs said of Harland and Tomkins. “We went all in and it paid off.”

Corona got things going. His two-out double scored Dalton Davis, who’d reached after getting hit by a pitch, to give Tech a 1-0 lead in the first.

“I thought we were locked in offensively from the start,” Burroughs said.

Tech added three in the second. The Bulldogs loaded the bases when Ethan Bates reached on an infield error and Panther righthanded starting pitcher Orlando Hernandez, who injured his elbow on the pitch to Bates, gave way to righty reliever Richie Pena, who walked Adarius Myers and gave up a single to Walker Burchfield. Will Safford and Logan McLeod knocked in a run apiece with sacrifice flies, and Davis doubled to score Burchfield for a 4-0 lead.

Corona and Bates each homered to right in the third to push the lead to 6-0.

Sparks ran into trouble in the fourth. The junior righty (3-1) gave up a homer, two doubles and two runs before Fraginals came in to get a fly ball out — “He calmed the storm,” Burroughs said — and send the Dogs to the bottom of the inning leading 6-2.

Tech immediately got a run back to make it 7-2 in the bottom of the fourth. McLeod was plunked for a team-leading 12th time this season and Davis doubled him home, the first baseman’s second RBI double of the game.

The Panthers made it 7-3 in the fifth on two singles and a sacrifice fly by Alec Sanchez, who homered in each game of the series.

But Tech answered again, this time with three in the bottom of the inning, all with two outs. Burchfield hit his third homer of the year, a bomb to dead center, to score Myers, who’d walked. Safford reached on an error and scored when McLeod hit his first triple of the season for a 10-3 Tech lead.

Harland, who threw a six-pitch, 1-2-3 sixth, gave up two runs on a double and homer in the seventh as FIU cut the lead to 10-5 before Tomkins came in to nail down the Bulldogs first sweep of the spring since they won three straight in The Love Shack against Northwestern of the Big 10 the first week of March.