The Saint Xavier Baseball Team had an interesting weekend, playing three games in two days. The weekend was mostly disappointing for the Cougars who ended going 1-2 in their three games.
The weekend games would start on Friday where SXU would play their first of two games against the Lawrence Tech Blue Devils.
The Cougars’ struggles started early when they found themselves with runners on 1st and 3rd in the top of the 2nd.
SXU was not able to get out of this jam and Lawrence Tech hit a single to drive in their first run of the game. The scoring did not stop there and in the next at bat, Lawrence Tech’s Nick Allen hit a three run bomb to extend their lead to four.
After a double play and a quick ground out, SXU would get out of the inning, but the damage had already been done and SXU found themselves down by a steep deficit.
Saint Xavier was in a position to respond in the bottom of the 2nd with runners on first and third. However, they could not come up with clutch hitting and ended the inning with a ground out to the pitcher and leaving both base runners stranded.
In the next four innings, we would see shutdown pitching from both teams with no runs being allowed by either team. In the top of the 7th, Nick Allen hit another home run against SXU, giving the Blue Devils a five run lead.Saint Xavier could not answer back and the game ended with the Cougars being completely shut out 5-0.
On Saturday, the Cougars would start their double header with a second game against Lawrence Tech.
The game would start off very similar to their previous match up. The second inning once again proved to be disastrous for the Cougars.
The Cougars had one out with the bases loaded with Nick Allen stepping up to the plate. They got an important groundout but this allowed all the runners to advance and the first run of the game to be scored.
Lawrence Tech then hit another single allowing both of the runners on base to score giving the Blue Devils a 3-0 lead.
The score would stay at 3-0 until the bottom of the 5th when the Blue Devils had runners on first and second base with nobody out.
The Cougars put in pitcher Logan Demato to get them out of this tough situation. He walked the first batter he faced, which loaded the bases.
The next batter hit a flyball which was caught, but allowed the runner to tag up from third and score. The next two batters hit into back to back ground balls which led to fielder’s choices and the Cougars came out of the inning giving up only one run.
Unlike the previous game, this time the Cougars would respond. In the ensuing sixth inning, the Cougars would have a chance of their own with men on first and second with no outs.
Bryan Javier was up to bat and bunted to advance the base runners to second and third. Next up was Matt Bunnetta who hit a simple ground out, but he did allow the runner on third to score.
Saint Xavier would score another run off of a throwing error to limit the deficit to two before the inning ended.
This scoring outburst was too little too late for the Cougars, as they were not able to score in the seventh. The Cougars lost their second straight game to Lawrence Tech this time losing 4-2.
The third and final game of the weekend for Saint Xavier was against the Grace College Lancers.
The Cougars would draw first blood in the bottom of the second when four batters were walked. They would tack on a second run with a sac fly.
The Lancers would answer back right away in the top of the third with a double followed by a two run homer. This tied the score at 2 runs a piece.
SXU would respond to this by scoring eight runs in the bottom of the third. The inning included two separate RBI base hits for Matt Monohan and a two run RBI for Bryan Javier.
This inning gave the Cougars an eight run lead and made it nearly impossible for a Lancer comeback. They still tried though and would score four runs in the next two innings to cut the gap in half.
SXU would not let this happen however and scored two more runs in the sixth inning, both coming off of errors.
After a scoreless seventh Saint Xavier would win their final game of the weekend 12-6 against Grace College.
The Cougars next series will start on Tuesday February 25th where Saint Xavier will head down to St.Louis to play a double header against Missouri Baptist University.