NEW ORLEANS, La. – The Alcorn baseball program erased a 5-1 deficit with a six-run sixth inning and senior
Travaris Cole put the cherry on top with a ninth inning grand slam to lift the Braves to a 13-7 victory, improving to 2-1 on the campaign.
Alcorn (2-1) logged a season-best 15 hits and 13 runs as the team averaged 9.3 hits plus 9.0 runs per game in the opening weekend tournament against SWAC West opponents.
Cole continued his early season dominance, recording a career-high six RBI, eight total bases, a double and a game-sealing grand slam while accumulating a tied for career-best four hits.
Junior
Jamey Fabre made his only hit of the afternoon count, driving a double into the gap to score two.
Sophomore
Tristin Garcia, redshirt senior
Kyle Jenkins, senior
Brandon Rembert and redshirt senior
Jordan McGowan each produced an RBI each. Rembert had three runs scored and Garcia came across twice.
Lurleen B. Wallace CC transfer
Jarius Colley made his Braves debut in style with a 3-of-5 day and two runs scored.
Senior
Tyler Smith (1-0) picked up the victory, hurling three innings out of the bullpen while allowing three hits, two runs and whiffing three batters.
Redshirt sophomore
George Osborne III acquired his second save in as many appearances, throwing two scoreless frames and picking up a strikeout while surrendering just one hit.
Arkansas-Pine Bluff (1-3) had 13 hits but only three of those were for extra bases, all doubles.
Braelin Hence and Humberto Maldonado provided most of the Golden Lion offense, going 6-for-9 (.667) with five RBI.
The Braves threatened to score during their opening at-bats without notching any hits as Garcia reached on an error and Cole was hit by a pitch to make runners on first and second. The purple and gold could not cash in as UAPB slipped out unharmed.
Lane Gordon made a good opening impression, inducing a 1-2-3 inning in his first career NCAA start after transferring from Southwest Mississippi CC.
The second inning saw Alcorn knock a single then get caught stealing while the Golden Lions registered their first hit but nothing more.
UAPB drew first blood in the bottom of the third, driving in three runs on four hits to move ahead 3-0. The boys from Lorman would crack the scoreboard in the subsequent half inning. After the first two batter were retired, Cole beat out a single to shortstop, Jenkins walked and McGowan brought Cole around from second on a seeing-eye single through the left side to shrink the margin to 3-1 Golden Lions.
The black and gold retaliated in the bottom half of the fourth, using three consecutive singles to load the bases before a fourth single drove in two, making Arkansas-Pine Bluff's lead grow to 5-1.
The top of the fifth got off to a strong start as Colley got his first career hit as a Brave followed by another single from redshirt senior
Micah Walker. Garcia would get plunked by a pitch to load the bases with one down and then Rembert promptly pushed him home with a sacrifice fly two pitches later to trim the gap down to 5-2.
In the bottom half of the fifth a leadoff walk prompted a pitching change to
Tyler Smith who proceeded to induce a lineout and a 1-6-3 double play to get out of the inning.
The Braves portion of the sixth saw the bats spring to life with Jenkins leading off the inning with a single and McGowan drawing a five-pitch walk. Fabre would deliver, driving the first pitch he saw over the center fielder's head to bring both runners around to score a make it 5-4. Fabre would eventually move to third on a wild pitch and then scored on one moments later to tie the game at five. Garcia came up to the plate with Walker on second and slapped a single into right field to bring him in, giving the purple and gold its first lead (6-5). Cole further added onto the Braves' monster inning, launching a two-RBI double to deep center to cap off a six-run explosion in the sixth in which they batted around.
Tyler Smith continued to mow down Golden Lions hitters, picking up back-to-back strikeouts and a groundout in the bottom of the sixth to keep the Braves' momentum rolling.
The Baseball Braves got two two-out baserunners but could not score in the top of the seventh and the Golden Lions struck back with two runs in the bottom half make things interesting at 8-7 in favor of the Braves.
A pair of one-out singles in the eighth by Rembert and Cole setup runners on the corners for Jenkins, who drove one in on a long fly ball to deep center, making the score 9-7 after the sacrifice fly. Osborne III came out of the bullpen in the bottom half, shook off a fielding error and sat down the side courtesy of a 5-4-3 double play.
Cole put the exclamation point on the weekend, destroying a two-out grand slam in the top of the ninth to put the game out of reach before Osborne III sealed the save with a scoreless ninth as the Braves won 13-7.
The Baseball Braves will travel to face an Ole Miss team who was ranked #25 in the NCAA's preseason poll on Wednesday at 4 p.m. inside Swayze Field.
NOTES
- The boys from Lorman have compiled a 38-20 record in the series history versus Arkansas-Pine Bluff, winning four consecutive games against the Golden Lions.
- Alcorn went 5-for-12 (.417) with runners in scoring position while UAPB went 6-for-11 (.545).
- All six of
Travaris Cole's RBIs came with two down and eight of the team's 13 runs (.615) were of the two-out variety.
Quoting Alcorn head coach Bretton Richardson
On the four-run ninth inning that put the game out of reach:
"We were up going into that last inning by two runs so we wanted to get more runs. I contemplated after
Jarius Colley led off with a single maybe bunting him over to second base but again with a two-run lead I wanted to see how far this ballclub had come so I let it play out a little bit. We were fortunate that that guy missed that ball out there in centerfield to setup runners on second and third, [UAPB head coach] Carlos James chose to intentionally walk
Brandon Rembert to get to Tez [
Travaris Cole] and Tez made him pay with the big hit."
On if he was concerned down 5-1 early in the game:
"Not really because we still had a lot of game left to be played and I knew with our lineup that we can score runs in bunches as we've shown so far this season so I wasn't too concerned but what did concern me a little bit is that Lane [Gordon] couldn't go out there and settle down. I thought maybe once he gave up the three-spot in the third inning he'd come back and settle into the ballgame but he came back out and gave up another two-spot so that kind of concerned me a little bit. We had to find a way to stop the bleeding so I figured once we found a way to stop the bleeding, which
Tyler Smith came in and did a great job to stop the bleeding, then we were able to score runs to go ahead and then of course George [Osborne III] came in to close the door at the end."
On the bottom of the lineup finding ways to get on base:
"We feel pretty good about our lineup, if those guys on the bottom can continue doing what their doing to set the table for the guys at the top, we feel like our guys two through seven can score some runs. If those guys can do that, I'm not saying we're going to average 13 runs a game but if they can do that we will definitely be able to score some runs this year."
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