Feb. 26, 2005

Rams win again, sweep series with Loyola

MOBILE, Ala. -- The University of Mobile baseball team (16-1, 6-0) is off to a 6-0 start in the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference and have now won 13 games in a row after sweeping a scheduled seven inning doubleheader from Loyola University-New Orleans Saturday afternoon at home.

In the first game, Lance Howard hit a deep single to left field scoring Josh Banashak on the play with the winning run in a Mobile 6-5 victory. With two out and nobody on in the bottom of the seventh, Banashak kept the inning alive by singling to left field. After stealing second base, Howard smashed a 3-1 fastball over the leftfielder’s head scoring Banashak with the winning run.

Banashak had two hits and scored three runs in the game and Howard had two hits and two RBI’s.

Chris Copeland (4-1) picked up the victory coming into the game in relief of Jason Ragan in the seventh inning. With a runner on first and third, nobody out and the Rams clinging to a one run lead, Copeland got Loyola’s Greg Veltri to hit into a double-play that scored the run from third but kept the Rams out of further trouble. Copeland would then get Kevin Kalina to ground out to second base to get out of the jam.

In the second game, Simon Badeaux improved to 5-0 by pitching the Rams to a 1-0 shutout over Loyola in the third and final game of the series. David Lauricella led off the Loyola top of the second inning with a single but that would be the only hit the Wolfpack would get the rest of the day as Badeaux allowed just two base runners and struck out five in going the distance.

Taking a scoreless game into the bottom of the fifth inning, the Rams would finally break through when Loyola starting pitcher Bryan McCaulley balked in Ron McMillian with what turned out to be the game winning run. McMillian singled to left field with one out to start the inning and advanced to second base on a wild pitch. After Daniel Harper singled to center field to move McMillian over to third, McCaulley balked, forcing in the game-winning run.

McCaulley would be credited with the loss after going six innings and allowing just one earned run on five hits.

Mobile will be in action again next weekend when they host LSU-Shreveport in a Gulf Coast Athletic Conference three game series.

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