May 18, 2006

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#2W Southern 10, #2E Alcorn State 6
Demarcus Coats went 3 for 6 with three RBI's, and Darren Clark went 3 for 4 with a solo home run, as the #2 West Seed, Southern Jaguars defeated the #2 East Seed, Alcorn State, 10-6 in game #1 of the 2006 SWAC Baseball Tournament at Trustmark Park, in Pearl, MS.

Southern opened the scoring in the first inning, when Demarcus Coats singled and advanced to second on a wild pitch, and Brandon Revis sacrificed him to third on a bunt. Gerard Gause's sacrifice fly to right field scored Coats given the Jags an early 1-0 lead. Darren Clark then took a 2-1 pitch, and hammered it to center field, clearing the fence for a home run at the 402 sign.

Alcorn State's Roberto Ortiz scored on a wild pitch to open the scoring for the Braves in the bottom of the first inning.
Southern exploded for three more runs in the third inning and three runs in the fifth to break the game open 8-1.

But the Braves were not ready to hand the game over to last season's SWAC champions. Alcorn State rallied to score four runs in the bottom of the sixth inning to pull to within 5-runs at 9-5.

Southern came back with an insurance run in the 8th inning when shortstop Brandon Revis singled to center field scoring SU's Kevin Cox, giving Southern a 10-5 lead heading into the bottom of the 8th.

ASU's Marcus Davis singled to left field in the 9th inning, then stole second base uncontested, while Bradley Hubbert-Ruppert (SWAC Newcomer of the Year) singled to center field scoring Davis. Scott Spillars flied out to right field to end the game.

"We played a decent game today, but we still left to many runners in scoring position", said SU Roger Cador. "We got six good innings out of our starter (Rodrick Merritt) and El Duque (Emary Frederick) came in and closed the door. We were able to get through today with minimal use of our pitching staff, so that leaves us with a few good arms left for the rest of the tournament. We know that the second game of the tournament is probably the toughest game in the tourney."

With the win, Southern will play #1E Mississippi Valley State (4-1 winners over Texas Southern) at 6:00 pm on Thursday evening at Trustmark Park.