McNeese edges George Washington to secure weekend sweep

LAKE CHARLES – McNeese shortstop Josh Leslie scored on a two-out wild pitch in the bottom of the eighth inning to break a 6-6 tie then Christian Vega sat down the top of the ninth in order as McNeese finished off a weekend series against George Washington with a 7-6 win on Sunday to capture its first sweep of the season.

McNeese improves to 8-4 on the year while GW falls to 2-8. The Cowboys have won their last two weekend series and are now winners of five straight and seven of their last eight games.

Vega improved to 2-0 after throwing the final two innings in perfect fashion, striking out five of the six batters he faced. Ty Abraham gave the Cowboys a nice start, throwing four innings and giving up three hits and two runs with both of those coming off a two-run home run. He struck out six and walked one.

Leslie put the Cowboys on top 2-0 in the first inning with his third home run of the season, a two-run homer over the left field wall. The lead grew to 3-0 in the third when Brad Burckel led off with a single up the middle, stole second and eventually scored on an infield single by Dean Bittner.

Burckel stole four of the Cowboys’ nine bags for the game while Leslie swiped three.

GW posted its first runs on the weekend in the fourth inning when Eddie Micheletti hit a one-out, two-run home run to cut the Cowboy lead to 3-2. The runs snapped a streak of 24.1 consecutive scoreless innings hurled by the Cowboys.

McNeese got the two runs back in the bottom of the inning when Cooper Hext hit an RBI triple then scored with two outs when he and Burckel were successful on a double steal and the Cowboys led 5-2.

The Colonials added two runs in the fifth and two in the seventh to take a 6-5 lead. McNeese looked to even things up at the minimum in the bottom of the seventh when it loaded the bases with no outs but GW reliever Chris Knight was able to get a couple of Cowboys striking out and a third to ground out to end the threat.

But in the bottom of the eighth, Braley Hollins led things off for the Cowboys with a single and advanced to second on a wild pitch. Leslie singled him in with a two-out infield single to tie the game 6-6. Burckel then walked on the same pitch Leslie stole second and the two followed with a double steal to second and third. Leslie scored the go-ahead run on a wild pitch to put the Cowboys on top 7-6.

McNeese finished with 10 hits in the game with Leslie leading the way by going 2-for-4 with three RBIs and two runs scored.

The Cowboys will be back in action on Wednesday when they visit Louisiana-Lafayette and will return home next weekend for a three-game series against Prairie View.