GEORGETOWN, Texas — Southwestern baseball clinched its weekend conference series against Austin College with an 11-6 victory, sweeping the day's doubleheader against the Kangaroos.
The Pirates struck first, scoring two in the bottom of the second. Daniel Montgomery Jr. hit a leadoff single to center, and Landon Durdin walked to put two on. Ryan Baranowski followed with an RBI single through the right side, scoring Montgomery. After Jacob Tanner went down looking, Ted Lobkowicz hit a sacrifice fly to center, scoring Durdin.
After cruising through the first two innings, Southwestern starting pitcher Nathan Fetchel ran into trouble in the third inning. Fetchel walked Beau Beshires to start the inning, then surrendered an RBI-single to Brandon Hill. Sergio De Paoli reached on an error, loading the bases.
Fetchel recovered to strike out Nick Flynn, but Zack Mahoney hit an RBI-single through the right side to score Beshires. Fetchel earned the second out of the inning by inducing a pop-up from Justin Alphonse but then surrendered three consecutive singles and four runs, leaving the game with a 5-2 deficit with four of those runs unearned.
J.J. Slack replaced Fetchel and struck Beshires out swinging. Slack continued his recent string of solid relief appearances, striking out nine in 4.1 innings of work while surrendering only two hits and one run to earn his third consecutive win.
Slack retired the first 11 hitters he faced in order with a trio of three-up, three-down innings in the fourth, fifth, and sixth, striking out the side in the fifth.
The Pirates tied the game in the bottom of the fourth, taking advantage of two errors to score three runs. Southwestern scored on a fielding error, an RBI-single through the right side by Lobkowicz, and a double steal with runners on the corners.
Southwestern took the lead in the bottom of the fifth on a sacrifice fly to the warning track by Montgomery, scoring Bryce Debbs, who had a leadoff single through the right side.
The Pirates added four more runs in the sixth inning off Austin College relief pitcher Jonathan Voos, who started the inning. Voos hit Tanner and Maxwell Mims to put two on with one out, setting up a Jake Harris two-RBI single to right field. Debbs followed with a single to load the bases, and Lance Kruse drew a walk to score a run and a pitch hit Montgomery to score another to give Southwestern a 10-5 lead.
Austin College scored its lone run off Slack in the seventh, getting a two-out single from Mahoney followed by an RBI-double from Alphonse before Slack struck Logan Ballard out swinging. Southwestern responded with a Lobkowicz RBI on a fielder's choice in the bottom of the inning.
Cole Johnson replaced Slack to start the eighth, putting two on with no outs before getting out of the innings unscathed. Skyler White took the mound for the Pirates to start the ninth, recording a pop-up, a walk, and two strikeouts to close the game.
Harris and Debbs each hit 2-for-5 for Southwestern with a run scored for Southwestern. Harris was one of three players to record two RBIs, along with Lobkowicz and Montogmery.
With the win, Southwestern improves to 17-15 with a 12-5 conference record. Austin College drops to 5-19 with a 1-16 conference record. The two teams will conclude their three-game series tomorrow at 1:00 p.m.