March 13, 2010
San Antonio – Courtney Behrend picked up his fourth victory of the season, tossing 7.1 strong innings, while Ryan Morrow and Jonathon Cisneros each had three hits to lead the offense as St. Mary’s University completed a three-game sweep of Texas A&M International University with a 3-2 victory Saturday afternoon in Heartland Conference baseball action at V.J. Keefe Field.
Behrend (Sr., Comfort) improved to 4-0 this season, allowing just 2 runs, 1 earned, on 5 hits and 2 walks, while striking out 6 batters. Sammy Rivas (Jr., San Antonio) tossed a perfect 1.1 innings to earn his second save.
The Rattlers rallied after falling behind 1-0 in the top of the third inning. Jason Garcia (Jr., Falfurrias, Texas) led off with a double, and came home with the tying run three batters later on an RBI single by Josh McElroy (So., San Antonio). In the sixth inning the Rattlers took the lead for good. With one out Morrow (Jr., Bulverde, Texas) singled and moved to second on a single by Cisneros (Sr., San Antonio). That brought up Weston Baros (Jr., San Antonio), who doubled to bring home the go-ahead run. Cisneros moved to third on the play, and came home when Greg Herbst (Jr., San Antonio) grounded out to second.
Morrow went 3-for-4 with a double and a run scored. Cisneros was a perfect 3-for-3, with a run scored and a sacrifice bunt. Six of the Rattlers nine starters had at least one hit in the game.
With the win St. Mary’s improved to 18-7 overall and 16-6 in Heartland Conference play. The Rattlers are now in second place in the Heartland Conference, just two games behind the University of the Incarnate Word. St. Mary’s has won 10 of their last 11 games. TAMIU fell to 8-17, 7-17. St. Mary’s will return to action on Tuesday, when they travel to Kingsville, Texas, to face Texas A&M University-Kingsville in a single game starting at 6 p.m.