Tulane Baseball Stumbles Early, Can't Catch Up in 7-3 Loss to UTSA
Another Friday night, another frustrating outing early on for the Tulane baseball team in their 7-3 defeat at the hands of league-leading UTSA. The loss drops the Green Wave to 21-22 for the season, 7-9 in American Conference play. The Roadrunners are now 28-13 on the year, and tied with UAB at the top of the American heap with an 11-5 record.
UTSA scored early and often on starting pitcher Trey Cehajic. The graduate, who has struggled most games he's started since conference play began, gave up two runs in the top of the 1st, then five more in the top of the third.
"It started on the mound, and on defense" coach Jay Uhlman explained. "Trey had nine guys at two strikes (on the batters), and (he gave up) six hits and a walk. (Defensively) we lost a ball in the sky (on a high blooper), the next (batter) doubles. That's a run."
And things didn't get much better after that, as Cehajic gave up a bunt single, a sacrifice fly, a single, a double, and a walk. Enter LuisPablo Navarro, who walks two straight to score another run, leading to five runs in the inning.
"We just said, 'Here, we don't want this. We don't want this game,'" Uhlman said frustratingly.
After the 3rd, Navarro pitched brilliantly, going a total of 4.1-innings, not giving up a hit, striking out six, along with four walks. Jacob Moore pitched the last two innings, holding the hot-hitting Roadrunners without a hit the rest of the game.
Meanwhile, Tulane outhit UTSA, 11-8 in the game, hitting the ball hard at times, often right at Roadrunner defenders. Tulane went 11-of-34 in the game, while a team that averages over .300 collectively as a team, only went 8-of-34 on the night, but the Wave could not overcome the start of the contest.
"It's the first three innings," Uhlman told us. "You can't go out there and do that and expect to win, and we hit into double plays." Three, to be exact.
The Green Wave ended a frustrating night with some outstanding pitching, giving up no hits and no runs over the last six and a third innings, and scoring three unanswered runs over the last two-thirds of the game.
Game two of the series against UTSA is set for Saturday night at 6:30. Graduate pitcher Jake Toporek will take the mound for the Green Wave. The Tulane lefty has pitched the last four game twos in weekend series, beginning with UAB, when Saturday starter Jack Frankel was declared out due to injury. Frankel has yet to return to the mound. During those 16.2-innings, Toporek has given up 20-hits, 8-runs all earned, walked five, and struck out seventeen.
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Doug has covered a gamut of sporting events in his fifty-plus years in the field. He started doing sideline reporting for Louisiana Tech football games for the student radio station. Doug was Sports Director for KNOE-AM/FM in Monroe in the mid-80s, winning numerous awards from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association for Best Sportscast and Best Play-by-Play. High school play-by-play for teams in Monroe, Natchitoches, New Orleans, and Thibodaux, LA dot his resume. He did college play-by-play for Northwestern State University in Natchitoches for nine years. Then, moving to the Crescent City, Doug did television PBP of Tulane games and even filled in for legendary Tulane broadcaster, Ken Berthelot in the only game Kenny ever missed while doing the Green Wave games. His father was an alumnus of Tulane in the 1940s, so Doug has attended Tulane football games in old Tulane Stadium, the Superdome, and Yulman. He was one of the 86,000 plus on December 1, 1973, sitting in the North End Zone to seeTulane shutout the LSU Tigers, 14-0. He was there when the Posse ruled Fogelman and in Turchin when the Wave made it to the World Series. He currently is the public address voice of the Tulane baseball team.