NEW ORLEANS, La. – After dropping the first game of their conference series Thursday, the Loyola offense erupted Friday in a doubleheader sweep of the ABAC Stallions.
The Wolf Pack won the opener 11-8 before taking the series final 16-5 in a shortened game due to the mercy rule. After scoring three run in 10 innings Thursday, Loyola scored 27 runs in a combined 12 innings Friday. ABAC did take early leads in both games but once the Wolf Pack started scoring, they didn't stop.
In Game Three, the Stallions scored two runs in the top of the first on RBI singles from Cris Walley and
Brayden Fordham. But Loyola wasted no time as the Pack scored four runs in the bottom of the inning and it got worse in the second. Five of Loyola's first six batters got hits as ABAC starter
Reigh Jordan had his shortest outing of the year. The Wolf Packed tacked on five more that inning to an early 9-2 lead.
In the third, Walley completed an extremely rare series hat trick. The freshman first baseman from Inverness, Fla. had a solo home run in Thursday night's 4-3 Stallion win and, in Game Two of the series earlier Friday, he blasted a grand slam. In the third inning, he hit another solo home run giving him one in all three games of the series. Walley now has nine on the season.
Loyola scored five more runs in the fourth and two in the sixth while ABAC scored twice in the sixth on
Joe Fisher's two-run single. The Stallions had only one less hit than Loyola (14-13) but three ABAC errors didn't help.
Friday's first game was much closer and it appeared that the Stallions were going to cash in on more late-game heroics. Trailing 6-4 entering the sixth inning, ABAC put together a huge inning capped by the Walley grand slam to put the Stallions up 8-6.
But Loyola showed its propensity for big innings as well. In the bottom of the sixth, Brandon Mooney had an RBI single before Cole Romero returned the lead to the Wolf Pack with a two-run single off reliever
Tre'von Lee for a 9-8 lead. Collin Zeringue followed that with a two-run blast for an 11-8 advantage that held up for one more inning and evened the series.
Lee took the loss in relief of
Kade Haywood, who allowed eight runs (five earned) over 5 1/3 innings.
On the day, Fordham had five hits while Walley added four and six runs batted in.
The Stallions are now 15-7 overall and 7-5 in the conference and will return to the road next weekend for a three-game series at Faulkner University in Montgomery, Ala.
