April 13, 2007
San Antonio – Michael Pawelek smacked two homeruns and drove in seven runs to rally St. Mary’s University to a 9-5 win in game two and a sweep of the Heartland Conference baseball doubleheader against the University of the Incarnate Word Friday afternoon at Sullivan Field. The Rattlers won game one 4-1.
Pawelek (Sr., San Antonio) gave the Rattlers a 3-2 lead in the top of the second inning with his fourth homerun of the season, a two-run shot. In the fifth inning he gave the Rattlers a 5-4 lead with an RBI double to left-center, which scored Cody Pyle (Sr., Spring Branch). He then gave the Rattlers the lead for good with a grand slam homerun in the top of the seventh inning. The seven RBI is a career high for the Rattlers rightfielder.
His work at the plate made a winner out of Frank Flores (Jr., San Antonio), who improved to 3-0 this season with a perfect 1 2/3 innings of relief work. Tommy Vrzal (Sr., San Antonio) went the first 5 1/3 innings, allowing five runs on seven hits. After allowing four runs over the first two innings, he settled down and allowed just one run on two hits over the next 3 1/3 innings.
In game one Zach Kucera (Jr., Spring) improved to 6-3 this season, allowing just one run on five hits and two walks, while striking out four for his second straight complete game win. Taking the loss was Adam Rimlinger, who fell to 4-2, allowing four runs on 11 hits and one walk in seven innings of work.
Ryan Femath (Sr., El Paso) was the big hitter at the plate, going 2-of-3 with a homerun and three RBI. Michael Brzezinski (So., Helotes), Pyle, Jonathon Cisneros (Fr., San Antonio) and Jason Davila (Sr., Boerne) also added two hits in the game for the Rattlers.
With the sweep the Rattlers improved to 27-12 overall and 19-7 in Heartland Conference play this season. Incarnate Word fell to 25-16, 14-12. The teams will wrap up their four-game series on Saturday with a doubleheader starting at 1 p.m. at Sullivan Field.