Troy Comeback Falls Short at UALR

Friday, March 23

Little Rock, Ark.

6:00 p.m.

Troy University

UALR

Photo by: Mike Strasinger

3/23/2012 9:25:00 PM | Baseball

By: Adam Prendergast

BOX SCORE

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – UALR held off a late Troy rally to take the Sun Belt Conference series opener 5-3 Friday night at Gary Hogan Field behind a career-high 12 strikeouts from Chance Cleveland.

Cleveland held Troy to just one hit over the opening 7.2 innings of the games before the visiting Trojans were able to solve his breaking ball. Austin Golden drew a two-out walk in the eighth inning, moved to second on a Tyler Hannah single and scored Troy's first run of the game on a Logan Pierce single. Danny Collins then lined a ball that would have scored another run, but UALR shortstop Bryson Thionnet was able to just get a glove on it to end the threat.

Joe Hernandez struck out the side in the home half of the eighth inning and Troy came out swinging again in the ninth. Boone Shear was hit by a pitch to lead off the inning and pinch hitter Jo-El Bennett hammered a home run over the wall in left-center field to pull Troy within two, 5-3, against relief pitcher Andrew Hohn.

Tyler Vaughn hit another hard line drive but UALR center fielder Cameron Bentley didn't have to move to record the out. Brandon Brown followed with a single to right-center field to bring the tying run to the plate with one out. Bubba Cooper replaced Hohn on the mound for UALR and retired two straight Troy batters to end the game.

Brown finished the game 2-for-4 in his first start since March 2. Chris Burk was the lone UALR player with multiple hits as he finished 2-for-4 with a pair of runs scored.

UALR (14-8, 1-3 Sun Belt) broke open a scoreless game with one run in the fourth and four in the sixth. Nick Rountree drove in three of the runs with an RBI grounder in the fourth following a lead-off triple by Burk and a two-run home run in the sixth. John Clark and Thionnet added RBI doubles in the sixth after the frame was kept alive by a wild pitch on what would have been a strikeout.

Cleveland (5-1) allowed two runs on three hits over eight innings of work. He walked two and hit two batters before turning the ball over to the bullpen.

Tyler Ray (2-2) suffered his second straight loss for Troy after he was charged with five runs on seven hits over 5.2 innings of work. Ray struck out six and walked two. Hernandez struck out four in his 1.2 innings out of the bullpen.

Troy (10-10, 1-3) will look to even the three-game series on Saturday afternoon. First pitch is scheduled for 4 p.m.