BEAUMONT – A late miscue proved to be disastrous for the Sam Houston Bearkats on Friday night in a 3-2 loss in 10 innings to Lamar at Vincent-Beck Stadium.
The Kats (11-7, 3-1 WAC) had tied the close game at 2-2 with a run in the eighth and looked to have pushed things into an 11
th inning before the game quickly fell apart. Cardinal (12-6, 4-0 WAC) catcher Ryan Snell was hit by a pitch with two outs and one batter later the Kats dropped a routine fly ball off the bat of Kelby Wyler in right field that allowed Snell to score from first with the winning run.
The error put reliever
Gavi Coldiron on the hook for the loss in a game that snapped a 12-game win streak for Sam Houston over Lamar that dated back to the 2016 season. Coldiron had been outstanding in his relief effort, taking over in the eighth and striking out five hitters in the game.
That effort came in relief of
Cole Wesneski who put together his second consecutive stellar start. The senior righty was coming off a 10-strikeout performance last week against Tarleton and this week went 7.0 innings again, on just 89 pitches, and struck out five. He allowed a pair of early runs, but kept the Cardinals off the board for the final four frames he was on the hill.
For Lamar, Jack Dallas earned the win with four punchouts in 2.2 scoreless innings of relief. Starter Braxton Douthit went toe-to-toe with Wesneski for 7.0 innings as well, striking out four and allowing just one run in his outing.
LU gave Douthit an early lead with a sacrifice fly from Josh Blankenship in the first inning and then tacked on another in the third when Snell followed a Blankenship 2-out single with a double off the center field wall.
But from there Wesneski kept the Cardinals in check and got a run back on a sacrifice fly from
Carlos Contreras in the fourth that scored
Clayton Chadwick after he led off the inning with the first of two singles in the game.
Chadwick came around to score again in the eighth on the second of two Cardinal errors in the inning. Sam Houston then had a chance to go up as
Justin Wishkoski ended up on third base on the play, but Dallas entered and proceeded to end the threat with a ground ball and a strikeout.
The Kats had one more chance to go up in the 10
th, but could not take advantage of a leadoff single from Chadwick. Dallas proceeded to strikeout both Wishkoski and Contreras, but then hit allowed both
Trent Touchet and
Easton Loyd to reach base to load the sacks before getting
Jacob Guerrero to pop out harmlessly to end the threat.
The teams will continue the series on Saturday with first pitch scheduled for 2:00 p.m. at Vincent-Beck Stadium. The Kats are scheduled to go with left-hander
Steven Beard and the game will be aired on the WAC Digital Network.
