Baseball
 

February 07, 2009

UT-Dallas Scores Four Late to Spoil Trinity's Opener

Tyler, Texas - Trinity's baseball team opened its 2009 season with a 9-5 loss to the University of Texas-Dallas on Saturday afternoon at UT-Tyler.

Trinity (0-1) and UT-Dallas were tied at five through five innings, but the Comets scored four times in the seventh and eighth innings - highlighted by a three-run eighth - to hand the Tigers only their second loss in a season opener under Head Coach Tim Scannell.  Coach Scannell began his 11th season tonight, having coached the team since 1999.

The Tigers scored twice in both the first and third innings to take a 4-1 lead, but UT-Dallas scored twice in the third and fourth to go up 5-4 in the game.  Trinity answered back immediately with a game-tying run in the fifth, but the offense had just three hits in the final four innings.

UT-Dallas scored the game-winning run on a seventh-inning sacrifice fly, then a two-run homer and another sac fly in the eighth accounted for the final score.  Two Trinity errors contributed to three unearned runs for UT-Dallas - including two of the three runs in the eighth.

Evan Jones, who led the team with a batting average over .400 last season, was 3-4 with three RBI to start the season.  Jones also broke school records with 25 doubles and 67 RBI during the 2008 season.

Kevin Jackson had one hit, but scored two runs.  Stosh Hoover and Jordan Pennington also drove in runs for the Tigers.

Evan Bronson gave up four earned runs - five overall - in six innings of work, striking out eight batters and allowing seven hits.  Clint Robertson (0-1) took the loss, giving up four runs in the final two innings, though he allowed just one hit and only two of the runs were earned.

Trinity will continue its opening weekend this afternoon, taking on hosting UT-Tyler at 5:00 p.m.  Tomorrow, the weekend concludes with an afternoon matchup with UT-Tyler once again.  The Tigers do not return home until next weekend against Austin College.