LORMAN, Miss. – The Alcorn State University baseball program got back-to-back jacks from seniors Brandon Barna and Kirt Cormier while junior Brandon Rembert went a perfect 4-for-4 but the Delta Devils prevailed 15-5 in seven innings.
Rembert had his first perfect night at the plate as a division one ballplayer, tallying three singles and a double to become only the second Braves player to garner four hits in a contest this season. Barna and Cormier uncorked massive moonshots over wall in the fifth inning as the duo is the first to hit back-to-back outside-the-park homers in 2019.
Cormier increased his season-long on-base streak to 19 games with his homer, as the Douglas, Arizona native has now reached in every single game he's played in. Freshman Tristin Garcia saw his 10-game hit streak and 15-game on-base streak come to an end, going 0-for-2 on the evening.
MVSU wasted no time setting the tone for the series opener, sending nine Delta Devils to the plate and stealing five bases in the first inning to accumulate five runs before the Braves could even step into the batters' box. Alcorn would subsequently go 1-2-3 in the bottom half.
Mississippi Valley was not finished adding to its lead, as the second inning saw two more come around to score as the visitors from Itta Bena stunned the Braves with a 7-0 advantage after an inning and a half. MVSU added one in the third and four in the fourth to blow the doors off the game, as it widened the gap to 12-0 the top of the fourth.
The purple and gold finally showed some life in the bottom of the fourth, as an RBI double off the bat of junior Kyle Jenkins and consecutive sacrifice flies by juniors Jordan McGowan and Trey Covert helped the Braves avoid the shutout at 12-3. MVSU would score once again in the fifth, tacking on three more runs to complete a crazy sequence where it scored in each of the first five innings of the contest to build the margin to 15-3.
Alcorn responded with a bang in the bottom of the fifth as the big boppers in the middle of the order made their presence felt. Barna lifted a high fastball over the left field fence before Cormier followed with a high-soaring rocket into the clear Mississippi sky as the Braves trimmed the deficit to 15-5. Both sides would go cold from then on as the final two innings went by scoreless as the Delta Devils took game one of the SWAC East clash by a 15-5 final score.
Starter Carlos Lopez (1-3) was saddled with the loss, pitching three innings and allowing eight runs (six earned) on six hits and four walks to go with four strikeouts. Lopez inched closer to tying for third all-time on the Alcorn career strikeouts leaderboard, as he trails Jahborus Smith (204) by only one after his performance.
Freshman Jonathan McKitt was nearly untouchable in his collegiate debut, closing out the final 2.1 innings by dominating MVSU to a tune of no runs, no hits, and three strikeouts.
Alcorn baseball gets right back to work tomorrow afternoon as the Braves and Delta Devils play game two at 3 p.m.
Quoting Alcorn head coach Bretton Richardson
Opening Statement
"As a coach, this all falls on me. I did not have these guys ready to play tonight and I thought I did. So what I've got to do is I have to go back and evaluate the way that I'm doing things to make sure that I'm doing things the right way but tonight we got beat in every phase of the game. Pitching, defense, hitting, we almost had more errors tonight than we had hits. So we've got a long way to go but tonight I absolutely take responsibility for this loss tonight."
On Mississippi Valley State's 10 Steals in the Game
"It's not so much about what they did as what we didn't do, and again that all falls on me. I take sole responsibility for that and I promise you that we are going to get better."
On Carlos Lopez's Outing
"He didn't have it tonight and again you have to credit Valley, they came out and put pressure on him, they put pressure on us ad we just didn't respond well. Again, that all falls on my shoulders."
On Getting the Team Ready to Go
"I pride myself on getting these guys ready to play and we don't make any excuses for what happens and what doesn't happen out here on this baseball field but tonight we weren't ready to play and as the head guy that's my responsibility. I'll hold that mirror in my face and I can promise you from this point forward, these guys will be ready to play."
On Extra Running Drills After Game
"From a conditioning standpoint, we want to make sure these guys are in the best, optimal shape that they can be if they are going to go out and do the things we expect them to do on the baseball field. It was a matter of trying to get some extra conditioning in and hopefully we'll come out tomorrow with a better effort."
On Errors
"Going into the game, Ryan [Fuentes] brought to my attention that we had the least amount of errors going into conference play tonight, but I don't know where we stand with that now. We just didn't have a good night defensively, offensively or on the mound tonight, so I take full responsibility for that and we'll have these guys ready to play tomorrow."
On Chances to Get Back in the Ballgame
"We had some runners on base and we had some opportunities to get a base hit and drive in a couple of runs but we weren't able to cash in on that. Valley did what we talk about as a pitching staff, who cares if you give up some solo home runs? Solo home runs don't beat you, and we hit a couple balls (solo home runs) but they only count for one run so those don't hurt you. It's a learning experience and hopefully these guys are going to learn from this but you have to tip your hat to Valley tonight, they just outplayed us in every phase of the game."
#FearTheBrave
