Rogers, McNeese blank Prairie View to open series

LAKE CHARLES – McNeese’s dominance on Friday nights continued when starting pitcher Grant Rogers threw another gem for the Cowboys as his five innings of scoreless work helped lead the Cowboys to a 9-0 win over Prairie View in the first game of a three-game weekend series.

Rogers was joined by JT Moeller and Payton Tinkler who combined to throw the second straight Friday night shutout for the Cowboys.

The series will continue on Saturday with a 2 p.m. first pitch.

Rogers (4-0) notched a win in his fourth straight start and allowed just one hit and struck out five in five innings of work and extended his consecutive scoreless inning streak to 19.1 innings. He faced the minimum of 15 batters through his five innings.

McNeese broke a 0-0 tie with four runs in the bottom of the second when Tré Obregon III (walked), Andrew Gonzales (hit-by-pitch) and Elliot Hebert (walked) loaded the bases to start the inning. Braley Hollins knocked in Obregon on a grounder to put the Cowboys on the board. The bases were loaded again on a Cooper Hext single then Payton Harden singled to score the fourth run of the inning.

The Cowboys added single runs in the third, fourth and fifth innings and plated two in the sixth to build a 9-0 lead through six innings.

Moeller threw three scoreless innings and allowed just one hit and was warming up to throw the ninth when he tweaked his ankle when landing after a warm-up toss and came out of the game for precautionary reasons. Tinkler threw a perfect ninth, striking out two of the three batters faced.

Offensively, the Cowboys put up 10 hits with the top three in the order – Hext, Harden and Leslie each collecting two and combining to go 6-for-14 at the plate with four runs scored.

Obregon reached in four of his five plate appearances, walking twice and being hit-by-a-pitch twice. He scored three times in the game.