No. 9 Baseball wins road SSAC series

PULASKI, Tenn. – The ninth-ranked Loyola University New Orleans baseball team earned a road Southern States Athletic Conference series win on Saturday, defeating Tennessee Southern, 17-4, in seven innings. 
 

The Wolf Pack (19-9, 5-4 in SSAC) is set to play four games at Segnette Field next week, first hosting Spring Hill at 5 p.m. on Tuesday before a three-game series against Mobile starting at 6 p.m. on Friday. 
 

Loyola grabbed complete control of the game with seven runs through the first four innings. Jed Cambre started the game with a triple, and when Jaxon Buratt reached base, the two executed a double steal to score the first run, 1-0. John Lewis scored on a wild pitch in the second inning, 2-0, and Reed Duthu picked up a two-RBI single two batters later to plate Buratt and Ben Harris, 4-0. Lewis notched a two-run home run in the third inning, 6-0, then Jovan Swasey was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded in the fourth, 7-0. 
 

The Wolf Pack busted the game open even more in the fifth inning, pushing eight more runs to take a 15-0 lead. Buratt picked up the first RBI with a single, 8-0, Nathan McDonald added a sacrifice fly, 9-0, then Drew Lee was hit by a pitch and Swasey walked with the bases loaded, 11-0. Harris and Buratt each had two-RBI base hits later in the inning, 15-0. 
 

The Firehawks finally got on the board in the bottom half of the fifth, 15-3, but the Pack scored again in the sixth and seventh to keep the pressure on UT Southern. Swasey had another RBI in the sixth, 16-3, and JJ Garcia got a run home in the seventh, 17-4. 
 

Michael Hotard picked up the win as the starting pitcher, giving up those three earned runs in the fifth. He allowed five hits and struck out three throughout his outing. Grant Goodbee worked the sixth with a strikeout, and Danik Reed sat down the three batters he faced in the seventh to finish off the game. 
 

Pack Facts

• The eight-run inning for the Wolf Pack in the fifth was Loyola's highest scoring inning of the season. 

• Michael Hotard improved to 4-1 with the Wolf Pack and leads all Loyola pitchers in wins this season. 

• Eight different players recorded hits in Saturday's win over the Firehawks, with Jaxon Buratt and Jed Cambre both posting multi-hit games. 

• Buratt finished off a solid weekend by getting to base five different times on Saturday. The junior went 3-for-4 at the plate with two walks, drove in three runs, and scored three times. He also stole a game-high three bases. 

• After totalling four hits in the second game Friday, Cambre collected two more on Saturday, one of which was a triple. He also scored twice. 

• The two run homer from John Lewis in the third inning was his first at Loyola and the fourth of his collegiate career.