Tulane Mercy-Rules Memphis to Take Series, 12-2
The Tulane baseball team (13-12, 2-1 American) rallied for a 12-2 run-shortened home victory over Memphis (6-16, 1-2 American) on Sunday at Turchin Stadium to take the first conference series of the season. The program has now won four of the last five games.
Jude Abbadessa (2-1) earned the win for the Green Wave with 3.1 innings of relief and two strikeouts. J.D. Rodriguez started for Tulane and went the first 3.1 innings with a run allowed on four hits with three strikeouts. Beau Sampson threw the final 1.1 innings. He struck out all four men he faced to earn his first save of the season.
Wave Offense Erupts
Nate Johnson led the offensive attack with three hits, two RBIs and two runs scored. Trent Liolios had a pair of hits and RBIs plus a walk. Jason Wachs scored three runs plus walked and had a triple. Tye Wood scored a pair of runs and drove in one. Matthias Haas walked three times, had a hit, an RBI and scored two runs. Evan Burg drove in a run. Hugh Pinkney tallied a pair of hits, a run scored and an RBI. Kaikea Harrison totaled a hit and a run scored.
Memphis scored first with a run, 1-0, in the second inning on Trae Cassidy's single to left field.
The Green Wave took the lead with a pair of runs, 2-1, in the fourth on an RBI double from Haas followed by a run-scoring single from Liolios.
Memphis tied the score, 2-2, on a successful squeeze bunt RBI from Cade Hitson in the sixth.
The Green Wave took the lead with three runs in the sixth. Wood came in to score from first on Nate Johnson's mishandled double. The second run of the frame was driven in on a Jack Johnson sacrifice fly. The third run came courtesy of a Pinkney single to right field.
Tulane stole a run, 6-2, on a caught steal at second that allowed Wachs to score from third on the designed play in the seventh.
The offense exploded for six runs to get to the run-rule 12-2 victory in the eighth inning. Wood drove in the first tally when he was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded. Nate Johnson followed with a double to plate a pair. Burg's fielder's choice, in which the ball was thrown away, brought in the 10th and 11th runs. The game ended on Liolios' RBI double.
Next, Tulane plays a non-conference home contest against Grambling State (8-14) on Wednesday, March 22, starting at 6:30 p.m. The game will be the final one of the nine game homestand.
Ripples
- Jason Wachs extended his on-base streak to 51 games from the end of last season and the first 25 games this year with two walks and a triple in the series finale against Memphis. The 51 games is a career high.
- Over the last eight games, Tulane's relief pitchers have thrown 48.2 innings with just 10 runs allowed while striking out 56.
- Evan Burg's RBI in the eighth was the first of his collegiate career.
- Beau Sampson is the fourth different Tulane pitcher to record a save this season.
- Tulane has now won the first conference series in five of the last six years and in eight of the last nine seasons when a conference season was played* (The 2020 American Conference season was not played in 2020 due to COVID -19 pandemic).
- The Green Wave are 78-52 all-time against Memphis.
Portions Courtesy Tulane Athletics
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.