It all happened so quickly in the Saturday afternoon affair at Green Field at Turchin Stadium, with the Tulane baseball team piling up nine runs in a three inning span to come from behing and collect a 9-6 victory over St. Mary's. The two teams plated all of their runs between the fifth and seventh innings in a closely played ballgame.
"Sometimes you have to win in different ways and today we won because we had a lot of resolve at the plate," said Tulane head coach Rick Jones. "We really fought back when we got behind, but we did not do a lot of thing as well as we normally do. We had some good at bats and put some pressure on them when we needed to and you have to give some credit to our players after battling back after a tough start."
Tulane put a pair of base runners on over the first four innings and St. Mary's had three base dwellers, but each starting pitcher was able to wiggle out of jams to take a scoreless ballgame into the fifth.
In the fifth, St. Mary's struck with a pair of runs against TU starting pitcher Alex Byo. The freshman right-hander allowed the first run on a sacrifice fly and the second run of the frame scored on an error by first baseman Matt Ryan.
Trailing 2-0, the Olive and Blue tallied four runs in their half of the fifth versus Kyle Barraclough, the righty starter for the Gaels. Matt Shortall singled in a run to get the home team in the scoring column and Brennan Middleton chipped in an RBI base hit in the next at-bat to tie the ballgame at 2-2. After a lineout put two outs on the scoreboard, Ryan singled and a throwing error by the Gaels shortstop allowed the third run of the inning to score. A wild pitch from Barraclough allowed the fourth run to scamper home and gave Tulane a 4-2 edge.
"We have some tough minded kids, but at the same time you have to have that ability," said Jones. "I think everyone is starting to get a sense of what it is like to be around a team that gets on a roll and how positive that can be."
Brandon Boudreaux doubled with two outs in the sixth and came around to score on a single from Garrett Cannizaro against SMC reliever Doresy Ek to make it a 5-2 contest in favor of the Green Wave.
The Gaels would not go quietly, however, tallying four unearned runs in the seventh to retake the lead from the home-standing Wave. In the frame, Byo got a flyball out to start things, then allowed a single and watched the second batter reach on a fielding error before being relieved by senior Preston Claiborne. Claiborne struck out the first batter he faced, walked the next and then allowed the big hit to Troy Channing. Channing hit a ball deep to center field that Nick Boullosa made a leaping attempt for at the wall. The ball bounced off the padded wall and scooted back towards the infield as the Gaels first baseman rumbled around the bases and slid into home plate for the inside the park grand slam.
