February 8, 2011
San Antonio – It took eight pitchers and a wild, gusting wind to even remotely cool off the Rattlers’ red-hot bats.
Utilizing seemingly every arm that suited up Tuesday, Tarleton State edged St. Mary’s 6-5 in a non-conference game at V.J. Keefe Memorial Stadium.
The Rattlers jumped to a 3-0 lead in the fourth inning, but the Texans produced six runs over the fifth, sixth and eighth innings to stage a comeback before about 120 fans.
“It’s good to get a game like this in early in the year, just because we had to battle,” said left fielder Derek Moczygemba (So., Bulverde, Texas), whose pinch-hit RBI single up the middle cut the deficit to one run in the eighth inning. “It felt like a late-in-the-season game.”
St. Mary’s (3-1, 3-0 Heartland Conference) started off right where it finished in sweeping Newman last week, scoring three fourth-inning runs to pull ahead. But with strong winds stonewalling most hits – coupled with a Tarleton pitching staff that went eight deep in its first game of the season – runs proved more difficult to come by as the game progressed.
Catcher Ryan Morrow (Sr., Bulverde, Texas), first baseman Tyler Migl (Jr., San Antonio) and left fielder Billy Richard (So., Schertz, Texas) all produced RBIs for the Rattlers.
For Migl, his 1-for-4 performance included another double – his sixth double in seven hits this season.
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Skye Severns (Jr., Claremont, Calif.) got the start on the mound for St. Mary’s, pitching four shutout innings before yielding three runs in the fifth. Severns finished with two strikeouts in five innings.
The Rattlers will return to the field Saturday when they host Arkansas-Fort Smith in a rescheduled doubleheader beginning at 1 p.m. Saturday at V.J. Keefe Memorial Stadium. They will wrap up the series at 12 p.m. Sunday. The series was originally scheduled to begin Friday but was postponed due to weather-related travel issues for UA-Fort Smith.