By Tom Waddill
A couple of days after looking like the Bad News Bears, the Sam Houston State Bearkats gave a performance reminiscent of the team that has made two consecutive NCAA tournament appearances.
With an impressive 8-5 victory Saturday at Don Sanders Stadium, the Bearkats showed some resolve and won an important Southland Conference series from the Lamar Cardinals, a team that was tied with SHSU going into the weekend.
On Easter Sunday, the Kats (11-7 in league play, 20-13 overall) stand tied for second in the Southland with Texas-Arlington, two games behind Texas State. The Bearkats have won four of six Southland series so far, and since being swept by Texas-San Antonio, they are 6-3 in their last nine conference games.
Lamar fell to 10-8 in SLC play and 23-13 overall.
Sam Houston sophomore lefthander Brent Powers threw seven strong innings Saturday, striking out seven Cardinals and allowing six hits and three runs. Powers (1-0) gave up two early runs, then settled in and dominated a solid Lamar lineup.
“Brent was our hero today,” Kats coach Mark Johnson said. “That was as comfortable as we’ve seen him all season. I thought he relaxed after the first few innings and threw really good.”
Powers (1-0) got through the first four innings on grit and solid defense, an ingredient that was sorely missing Thursday in the Bearkats’ 13-6 loss to Lamar. Four errors led to eight unearned runs in the series opener, but the Bearkats bounced back and pounded the Cardinals 12-5 on Friday.
Powers walked three and hit two batters in those early innings, but only gave up two runs. In the first, SHSU left fielder Tyler Lundy threw out Lamar’s Brian Taylor trying to score on Chris Dunkin’s single.
Over the next three innings, Powers battled out of jams in which Lamar left five men stranded, three in scoring position.
“I was able to get most of my pitches over for strikes, plus the guys played real good defense behind me,” Powers said. “We made some big plays today. Lundy throwing that guy out at home was huge.”
Even bigger was the Bearkats’ five-run sixth inning.
Lamar starter Ricky Testa (3-3) ran into trouble for the first time, and unlike Powers, he could not escape unharmed.
Seth Hammock got the scoring started with an RBI single to center that plated Tyler Knight. With two outs, the Bearkats got a two-run single from sophomore second baseman Braeden Riley to take a 3-2 lead.
“We knew if we kept hitting the ball hard, we would find some holes,” Riley said.
Reliever James Brandhorst walked in two more runs before the Cardinals finally got out of a long sixth inning.
The Kats pushed across two more runs in the seventh. Justin Keithley doubled in Ryan Mooney and Riley came up with another key hit that scored Keithley to make it 7-3.
“Everybody on this team is committed to having good at-bats,” Riley said. “Their first guy (Testa), we’ve seen a lot of guys like him all year. And once we got into their bullpen, some weaknesses started to show and holes starting opening up.”
The Bearkats collected only eight hits Saturday, but they put those together with eight walks and four hit batters to score enough runs to win the series finale.
“We didn’t hit the ball as well as we should have, but I’m a coach. Coaches aren’t satisfied unless their team scores a hundred runs,” Johnson said. “Our guys got rocked pretty hard Thursday and to come back and win the next two is not easy to do.”
Riley said the Bearkats have not accomplished that feat in the two years he’s been at Sam Houston.
“Since I’ve been here, we’ve never lost the first game and come back to win the series. This is almost as good as a sweep,” said Riley, who went 2-for-5 with three RBIs Saturday.
Keithley and Mooney each added two hits and two runs.
Dunkin led Lamar with two hits and two RBIs. Tyler Link also had two hits for the Cardinals.
Relievers Matt Shelton and Will Skelton, the Bearkats’ reliable righty-lefty bullpen combination, shut the door on Lamar, with Skelton picking up his first save of the season.
After walking Taylor in the eighth, Skelton struck out Steven Tucker looking to end the Cardinals’ most serious late-inning threat. Lamar went quietly in the ninth with Skelton fanning Dunkin, then getting Ryan Saldivar and Jeremiah Sammy on routine fly balls to end the game.
The Kats host Houston and Texas Southern on Tuesday and Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. before heading to Thibodaux, La., next weekend for another Southland series.
