Myers Goes Distance Again As Baseball Defeats Pirates, 5-1

Shreveport- The Centenary baseball team opened its three-game Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference weekend series with a 5-1 victory over the Southwestern University Pirates thanks to another stellar outing by sophomore LHP Cody Myers (Friendswood, Texas) on Friday evening at Shehee Stadium.

The Diamond Gents (12-10, 7-2 SCAC) and Pirates (15-12, 6-4 SCAC) will finish the series on Saturday with a doubleheader set for 1 and 4 p.m.

Live stats and live video are available for Saturday's games at the links below:

Stats: https://gocentenary.com/sports/bsb/2023-24/boxscores/20240405_nau3.xml

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKX6wRuZceA

Centenary has won seven of nine and continued its dominant play at home, improving to an impressive 50-16 at Shehee Stadium since the beginning of the 2021 season. The Diamond Gents, though, were playing just their fifth home game this season and are now 4-1 as they have played 17 road/neutral contests.

Myers (7-1) continued his superb season as he tossed his second-straight complete game after doing so in last Thursday's 7-0 win over Schreiner University in Kerrville, Texas. The left-hander allowed 10 hits but just one earned run and three walks with 10 strikeouts. He faced 37 batters and threw 130 pitches – 87 for strikes. He entered Friday's game with an 0.82 ERA which ranked seventh nationally in division III, and has only allowed three earned runs over his last 39.1 IP with 37 K's.

Centenary finished with seven hits, walked four times, struck out four times, made one error, and left seven on base. Southwestern had 10 hits, walked three times, struck out 10 times, made two errors, and left nine on base.

The Diamond Gents took a 2-0 lead after two innings and the Pirates cut their deficit in half with a run in the fourth. Centenary then put the game away with a run in the seventh and two more in the eighth as the Maroon and White won for the sixth time in seven games dating back to March 18.

Greg Ferguson (1-2) started and pitched well for the Pirates but took the loss as he worked seven innings and allowed three runs, none earned, and five hits with two BB and three K's. He faced 30 batters, hit one, and threw 108 pitches – 67 strikes. Kyle Porter relieved him and faced two batters and walked them both and was replaced by Braden Simpson, who gave up two hits and struck out one. He allowed a two-run single to sophomore CF Collin Pitts (Lufkin, Texas) but the runs were charged to Porter.

Pitts finished 2-4 with three RBI as he also had a run-scoring single in the second, senior RF Austyn Benoit (Welsh, La.) went 2-3 with a BB, a stolen base, and two runs scored and senior C Jake Gonce (Katy, Texas) was 2-3 with a BB, a run scored, and two stolen bases. Senior SS Jobee Boone (Opelousas, La.) went 1-3 with two runs scored and a BB and freshman DH Walker Wicklund (Shreveport, La.) walked once in two at-bats.

Southwestern was led on offense by SS Ben Feuer who went 3-4 with a triple and a run scored and LF Christian Melillio who was 2-3 with a walk and drove in the Pirates' only run of the game with an RBI single in the fourth inning. CF Maxwell Mims went 1-4, C James Vaquero was 2-5, 1B Alexander Cannata finished 1-3 with a BB, and 2B Tres Organ was 0-3 but had one BB.

The Diamond Gents scored their two runs in the first when Wicklund reached on an error which scored Benoit and Pitts' RBI single brought Boone home. Melillio's RBI single in the fourth scored Feuer to make it 2-1 but another Pirates' error allowed Gonce to score in the seventh and a two-run single in the eighth by Pitts brought home Boone and Benoit to cap the scoring and make it 5-1.

The Pirates had early scoring chances, but Myers worked his way out of jams each time as Southwestern had four hits in the first two innings but stranded four base runners. Southwestern had two more hits in the third but stranded the bases loaded when Myers got DH Owen Stevenson to fly out to end the inning. Southwestern produced three hits in the fourth but stranded a runner and had a runner caught stealing.

Myers allowed just two runners to reach base over the final five innings – a walk to Cannata with one out in the fifth and a two-out triple in the ninth to Feuer as he got an inning-ending double play in the fifth to escape trouble, struck out the side in the sixth, retired the side in order in the seventh and eighth and worked around the triple in the ninth to secure the win.

See the complete Diamond Gents' season schedule here: https://www.gocentenary.com/sports/bsb/2023-24/schedule

Admission is FREE to all Centenary home athletic contests. Live stats and live video stream are available for all Centenary home contests. Please note that all dates and times are subject to change.

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