MARSHALL, Texas – The Concordia Texas baseball team used four home runs and 25 hits to grab a 19-9 run-rule eight inning victory and complete a three-game sweep of East Texas Baptist Saturday at Woods Field.
The 25 hits for CTX is tied for the fourth most in program history and the most since the Tornados racked up 27 hits in a win over Howard Payne in 2010.
With the win, the Tornados move to 12-6, 5-1 in the American Southwest Conference and are tied for first place in the ASC with UT Dallas.
In the first inning CTX jumped ahead with a run in the top of the first, but ETBU responded with four runs in the bottom half of the inning to take a 4-1 lead.
Clarence Guidry III cut the lead in half for the Tornados when he lifted the first homer of the game over the left field wall.
The big innings for CTX came in both the fourth and fifth when they put seven runs on the board in each inning to extend the lead to 16-5.
In the fourth,
Jacob Stegent got things started with a two-run home run to left center to tie the game. After a couple of miscues by the Tigers made the score 8-4,
Michael Evan put an exclamation point on the inning by roping a two-out RBI triple to right to extend the lead.
It looked like ETBU was going to strike back in the bottom half of the fourth, but
Trey Toney came on in relief and got a strikeout and a fly out to limit the damage to just one.
Toney, a sohpmore from Port Neches, Texas, picked up his first career win on the mound after throwing 2.1 innings, allowing just one hit, no earned runs and striking out two.
Concordia poured it on in the fifth, starting with a solo shot off the bat of
Daniel Williams.
Carson Cox continued his hot hitting of late with a two-RBI double to left center and was subsequently brought home when
Reed Carlton lifted a fastball over the center field wall to make the score 14-5.
Cox, a junior from Cotulla, Texas, produced four RBIs for the third straight game and finished the weekend 10-for-16 with 12 RBIs, three homers, three doubles, five runs scored and raised his season average from .375 to a whopping .438.
RBI singles from Williams and
Tyler Page closed the seven-run fifth and gave the Tornados a commanding 16-5 lead.
The Tigers made things interesting in the sixth thanks to a grand slam, but CTX answered with a run in the seventh and two in the eighth to complete the eight inning run-rule victory.
The Tornados will look to remain on top of the ASC standings next weekend when they take on McMurry in a three-game series at Tornado Field starting Friday night at 7:00 p.m.
