April 6, 2007
San Antonio – Brandon Lippe made his return to the mound a memorable one, throwing a complete game in his first appearance in six weeks, helping St. Mary’s University to a split of a Heartland Conference baseball doubleheader against St. Edward’s University, 7-1, 1-4, Friday afternoon at V.J. Keefe Memorial Stadium.
Lippe (Sr., Schertz) had been sidelined with an injury since Feb. 21 before toeing the rubber on Saturday. In his two previous starts this season he had not gone longer than five innings. But on Friday he went the distance, throwing 103 pitches and allowing just one run on seven hits and four walks, while striking out four. The lone run came with two outs in the seventh inning and the Rattlers up 7-0. Lippe improved to 3-0 on the season, despite allowing his first run in 17.2 innings of work this season.
The Rattlers meanwhile, took full advantage of four St. Edward’s errors to score six unearned runs in the game. In the first inning Ray Camacho (Sr., Converse) reached on an error with one out. Jonathon Cisneros (Fr., San Antonio) and Cody Pyle (Sr., Spring Branch) followed with walks to load the bases. Jason Anderson (Sr., Lancaster, Calif.) then smacked the first of his three base hits in the game to score Camacho and give St. Mary’s a 1-0 lead.
Two innings later the Rattlers increased the lead when Pyle hammered his 11th homerun of the season over the left field wall to give St. Mary’s a 2-0 lead. The Rattlers then put the game away in the fifth inning with five more runs. Anderson had an RBI single, while Jason Davila (Sr., Boerne) had a two-run single to lead the charge for the Rattlers.
Casey Plant was the tough-luck loser for the Hilltoppers, allowing seven runs, but only one of which were earned, on eight hits and three walks, while striking out eight in the complete game. He fell to 6-3 with the loss.
In game two Patrick Colgan was the story, allowing just one run on five hits and one walk in a complete game win. He improved to 8-0 with the win, while Brandon Key (So., Katy) fell to 2-4 with the loss. Key allowing two runs on five hits and one walk in 3.1 innings of work. Ryan Femath (Sr., El Paso) brought home the lone run of the game with his first homerun of the season.
With the split the Rattlers are now 25-12 overall and 17-7 in Heartland Conference play this season. St. Edward’s is 30-10, 22-6. St. Mary’s is three games back of the Hilltoppers in the Heartland Conference standings, but just one out in the loss column after taking three of four from St. Edward’s.
St. Mary’s will return to action on Friday, April 13 when they travel across town to face the University of the Incarnate Word in a pivotal Heartland Conference matchup at 3 p.m.