BATON ROUGE, La. — Arkansas-Pine Bluff needed to sweep Southern and a little help to get into the SWAC baseball tournament, but Southern is close to pulling out the broom first.
A late rally for UAPB came up just short as the Jaguars won Saturday’s first game 7-6. Southern followed that up with a 13-4 victory.
The third and final game of the series, which closes the SWAC schedule for the Golden Lions (8-36-1, 6-17 SWAC), is set for 1 p.m. today.
Southern (30-14, 16-7) scored four runs in the seventh to build a 7-0 lead, but tough pitching in the eighth helped UAPB score all six of its runs in the eighth. Cornelius Williams and Christian Weeber were hit by a pitch to produce the first run, Eddie Williams and Sean Samsa each hit an RBI single, and Cody DeMera, Soloman Williams and James Boulware each walked in a run. Three different Jaguars pitchers were used in the inning.
Stanten Jones (2-11) allowed four earned runs and five walks on six hits in 6 1/3 innings, but struck out six for the Lions. Redmond Floyd worked 1 2/3 innings and allowed two earned runs on two hits.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Southern outhit UAPB 8-5. No Lion had multiple hits.
UAPB took a 1-0 lead in the first inning of Game 2 when Samsa hit a triple and scored on an error at second base. Southern came back with three runs each in the first, third, fourth and fifth innings and plated another in the seventh.
Vincent Newton (0-3) gave up 15 of Southern’s 17 hits and nine earned runs in six innings, striking out four. Leo Fuentes worked two innings.
The Lions had 10 hits. Weeber and Samsa totaled two hits apiece.