SHREVEPORT, La. — After losing a close game on a walk-off fielder's choice on Friday night, Southwestern baseball unraveled with a pair of double-digit losses to the Centenary Gentlemen to get swept in the three-game series.
Game 1: Centenary 11, Southwestern 0
Centenary starting pitcher Preston Ludwig shut Southwestern's offense down with seven strikeouts, no walks, and only three hits allowed in seven innings for the complete-game shutout.
Errors cost the Southwestern defense early. Cade LaBruyere reached on an error to start the second inning and scored on Noah Koehmsted's RBI-double. Austyn Benoit followed with an RBI single to left field for the 2-0 lead.
Southwestern committed three errors in the fourth inning, allowing another pair of Centenary runs.
Centenary opened the fifth inning with three consecutive singles to load the bases. Then, after Koehmsted went down swinging, Julien DeLeon delivered a two-RBI single to right-center. Tyler Welch followed with a two-RBI triple, and Brady Robinson and Ben Bridges each had an RBI single to give the Gents six runs in the inning. The Gents scored another run in the sixth and retired the Pirates in order in the seventh to end the game via the 10-run rule.
Game 2: Centenary 18, Southwestern 4
Centenary delivered an onslaught of hits, scoring on six different Southwestern pitchers to sweep the Pirates with an 18-4 victory.
Five different Gents had multiple hits, led by Tyler Erickson's 3-for-4 performance with three RBIs and three runs scored.
Centenary did half of its damage in the fourth inning, putting six consecutive Gents on base with five hits and a hit batter. The Gents scored nine runs in the inning on seven hits.
Southwestern plated a run in the third inning on a groundout to shortstop by Sam Castillo, scoring Jake Harris, who was hit by a pitch. The Pirates added three more runs in the seventh inning.
After Landon Durdin groundout out to third to open the inning, the Pirates hit back-to-back singles and a hit batter to load the bases. Then, Maxwell Mims delivered a two-RBI single to center field, and Castillo recorded another groundout RBI before Trent Raschke went down swinging to end the game.
After the loss, Southwestern drops to 16-18 with a 7-11 conference record. The Pirates will host Howard Payne on Tuesday and close out the regular season next weekend with a three-game conference series against Dallas.