Saturday's 15-5, 7-inning, victory at Sullivan Field over Northeastern State improved the University of the Incarnate Word baseball team's record to 8-4 overall and 7-2 in the Lone Star Conference.
UIW is in the midst of a four-game winning streak, with three of those wins coming against conference opponents.
Starting pitcher Keith Vasquez went 4.1 innings, striking out four of 20 batters face, but a four-run fifth inning by NSU – including a 3-run home run – made the score 9-4 and Vasquez was replaced by Zach Anderson, who got the last two outs to end the inning.
Ethan Lutz pitched the sixth and seventh innings, striking out four and allowing just one run in 9 batters faced and earned the win, improving his record to 2-1 on the season.
The Cardinals did the most damage to the Riverhawks in the fourth inning, scoring eight runs on five hits. Then, in response to the 4-run effort by NSU in the top of the fifth, UIW responded with four runs of their own on four more hits to get the lead back to nine runs at 13-4.
Incarnate Word had 14 hits, including four doubles – two by Matt Roohan (2-for-2 with 5 RBI) and one by Steven Vidaurri (3-for-5 with 3 RBI) and Brandon Clark (1-for-2 with a sac-bunt) each. Matt Flores went 2-for4 with an RBI and Derrick Walls and Hector Flores were 2-for-4 and 2-for-2 (with 2 RBI), respectively.
The Cardinals will be back in action on March 4th-5th in a LSC series on the road against Central Oklahoma. Friday will be a doubleheader (starting at 1 p.m.) and Saturday will be a single 9-inning game starting at 1 p.m.
