Vols Sweep Opening Weekend in Mississippi

The Logan Vols baseball team finished opening weekend with two wins on Sunday to sweep the four game series with Meridian Community College.  Sunday saw two close ballgames including extra innings in game one.  With these two wins the Vols improve to 4-0 on the young season.

With nothing doing through the first two innings the Vols were the first to cross home plate in the third inning.  After a Ryan Ritter walk and a Ryan Hampe single, Ethan English came through with a big two out hit to score Ritter making it 1-0 Logan. Meridian answered right back with a single run of their own on a leadoff homerun in the bottom half of the third. 

The Vols would return the favor by scoring two runs in the top of the fourth inning after back to back singles by Drew Winters and Cameron Langston followed by a double steal with an errant throw and a wild pitch making the score 3-1 Logan. Meridian wasted no time in tying the game as they scored two runs in the bottom half of the fourth after a leadoff double followed by a homerun making it a 3-3 game after four complete innings.

The back and forth action continued into the fifth inning when Tyler Acosta got things going with a leadoff single and eventually came around to score on a Ryan Hampe single making it 4-3 Logan. Cameron Robinson pitched a clean fifth inning to finish his outing.  He went five innings, striking out eight, walking none and allowing three runs on four hits. Brodie Lenon came on in the sixth inning retiring the first two hitters he faced before giving up back to back singles which scored the tying run.

The score would stay tied into extra innings until the Volunteers were able to scratch two runs across in the top of the eighth inning.  Hampe got things going with his fourth hit of the game, followed by an RBI double by Ethan English and a sac fly from Cameron Langston making it 8-6 Logan heading to the bottom of the 8^th.  Lenon pitched a scoreless frame in the bottom of the eight to secure the series victory.  Lenon (1-0) earned the win pitching three innings, allowing four hits, one unearned run while striking out one and walking none. The Volunteer offense was led by a four hit performance from Ryan Hampe.  Drew winters and Ethan English both contributed with two hits each. 

Looking for a series sweep, the Vols sent Ethan English to the mound in game four.  Logan's bats came out hot in the first inning with three straight singles with one out but they could not scratch a run across in the first leaving all three runners stranded. A Tyler Acosta two out RBI single scored Michael Behrendt giving the Vols a 1-0 lead after an inning and a half.  Meridian would later tie the game in the bottom of the third when Ethan English gave up his lone run.  In four innings of work English only surrendered two hits and one run.  

The game would stay at a 1-1 tie until the top of the sixth inning when Cameron Langston and Julio Cajigas both reached on back to back singles.  Two batters later Tyler Acosta would drive in Langston with a sac fly to centerfield giving the Vols a 2-1 lead in which they would not relinquish.  

Hunter Ralls (1-0) earned the victory pitching three hitless innings while striking out three.  Acosta paced the Vols offense going 2-3 with both RBIs and a double while Cameron Langston added two hits of his own. 

"I am extremely pleased with the effort this weekend," said head coach Kyle Surprenant.  "I thought our guys showed a lot of toughness.  We had tough at-bats in big situations, guys made big pitches when we needed to and our guys answered every time Meridian got something going. They are a quality team that is going to win a lot of games this year, for us to go down there and compete the way we did says a lot about who we are.  We have things that we need to continue to work on but we showed the ability to win tough ball games and that's something that we will need to continue to do."

The Vols will be back in action next weekend when the travel down to Wadley, AL for the Southern Union Invitational. Logan will face Dyersburg St and Spartanburg Methodist on Friday; and will take on the host school, Southern Union State, on Saturday.