April 21, 2009
GEORGETOWN, Texas - Eight seniors on Southwestern's baseball team completed their careers on Tuesday afternoon at Rockwell Field in Georgetown. The Pirates lost the contest 13-7 to end the season at 16-22. McMurry improves to 25-15.
McMurry scored first when a lead off single by Nathan Saltzgaber was followed by a homerun over the left field fence by Tre Lips. A pair of doubles with a single led to two more runs and left Southwestern trailing by four in the first.
With one out in the bottom of the inning SU strung a couple of hits together to get on the board themselves. Brent McMullen reached first after being hit by a pitch and Michael Murphy followed with a single between short and third. Both advanced one base on a wild pitch. Matt Gruetzner walked to load the bases and John Wooten's sacrifice infield hit brought in McMullen and put SU on the board.
Ricky Gomez drew a walk to once again load the bases and Mark Noggle took advantage and poked one to left that brought in Murphy and Gruetzner. Cray Betts followed with a single of his own to score a hustling Gomez from second to tie the game at four. Matt Clark continued the scoring spree with a single that brought in Noggle and gave SU the 5-4 lead. Todd Boone's bomb to deep center field was caught over-the-shoulder by MCM's Gerad Morris to end the barrage.
McMurry responded by taking back the lead with three runs in the second to go up 7-5. Southwestern pulled within one in the third, 7-6, on an RBI single by McMullen.
MCM's lead went back to two in the fifth when Nathan Love singled and then stole second base to move into scoring position with two outs. Bradd Baker followed with a slow roller to left field that brought Love around to put McMurry up 8-6.
Lips started off sixth inning with his second home run of the game and MCM pushed one more across the plate to increase their lead to four, 10-6. Murphy's homerun in the bottom of the sixth brought Southwestern within three, 10-7, but that is as close as the Pirates would pull. McMurry posted one run in the seventh and two in the ninth to take the 13-7 victory.
Eric Ruff received the loss for the Pirates while McMurry's Hewitt received the win.
Murphy led offensively for Southwestern going 2-5 with a solo homerun, one RBI and two runs scored. Eight McMurry players had multi-hit days led by Tre Lips who was 4-5 with two homeruns, three runs and six RBI's.
The final out ended the careers of eight players at Southwestern. Murphy, Wes Willis, Kyle Foreman, Ruff, Gruetzner, Noggle, Gomez, and McMullen will be greatly missed by the Pirate family.