Late Home Run Puts Louisiana Tech Past Little Rock

RUSTON, La. – An eighth-inning home run put Louisiana Tech (4-0) over Little Rock baseball by a score of 4-2 on Wednesday night at J.C. Love Field.
 
Little Rock (0-4) took the loss despite a career performance by starting pitcher Cole Townsend who struck out a career-high 10 batters. The redshirt junior picked up the no-decision as he went 6.0 innings while allowing an unearned run on four hits and three walks.
 
"Cole showed us what we've been seeing all fall and spring," head coach Chris Curry said. "He has the potential to be a Friday night guy. We wanted to test him out against stiff competition and see where he measured up. Obviously, he passed with flying colors."
 
Louisiana Tech got on the board first in the bottom of the first inning. With the Bulldogs' Jordan Washam on first with a single, an error on the pickoff attempt to first allowed a two-base error, but an errant throw to third allowed Washman to score the game's first run.
 
Townsend got off to a hot start as he struck out five of the first six Louisiana Tech batters — tying a career high. After giving up back-to-back walks in the bottom of the third, Townsend recovered with a career-high sixth strikeout for the second out of the inning. A fly out to center ended the inning with the Bulldogs stranding runners in scoring position.
 
Townsend kept the strikeouts coming as he struck out his ninth batter in the bottom of the fifth. After hitting Sean Ullrich with a pitch, Townsend picked him off at first to end the inning.
 
After striking out his 10th batter of the game to begin the bottom of the sixth, Townsend gave up his fourth hit of the game on a double to center by Brent Diaz. Diaz went no further as back-to-back ground outs ended the inning.
 
With two outs in the top of the seventh, Cameron Knight earned a pinch-hit single up the middle for the Trojans' fourth hit of the night. Hunter Owens then delivered a two-run shot to deep center to give Little Rock its first lead of the night at 2-1.
 
After allowing a leadoff walk in the bottom of the seventh, Townsend's career night came to an end as Ryan LeMoine made his third appearance of the year out of the bullpen. After a throwing error to first and picking up the first out of the inning on a sacrifice bunt, LeMoine gave way to Dylan Slayton with runners in scoring position. Slayton got Little Rock out of the jam with a strikeout and a grounder to second.
 
Keenan Wingfield (0-1) made his second appearance of the year with one out and a runner on first in the bottom of the eighth. Corbin Osburn made his way out of the pen after a one-out walk with runners on first and second. On a 3-1 pitch, Raphael Gladu cleared the bases with a three-run homer to right to give Louisiana Tech a 4-2 lead.
 
Nik Gifford got on base with a one-out double in the ninth, but a ground out and a strikeout ended the game. Nate Harris (1-0) picked up the win for Louisiana Tech while Wingfield took the loss for Little Rock.
 
"I told our ball club that the fight and heart are there," Curry said. "What we're getting is a big dose of toughness and life. Life doesn't always go your way, and you don't always get what you want. It's about how you handle it, and what we need to do right now is handle this well and learn a baseball lesson that you can't beat yourself and set innings up against 40-win type teams. Walks and errors get you beat every time. You can almost point to every loss where our innings were created on our own. As soon as we get out of our own way, I think we'll be just fine. Our club continues to get better."
 
Little Rock will now face Purdue in a three-game series at home beginning on Friday at 3 p.m.