MONTGOMERY – The Alabama State baseball team completed a four-game sweep of its SWAC- opening series against Mississippi Valley State, winning 4-0 and 9-7 Sunday at the Wheeler-Watkins Baseball Complex.
The Hornets (12-3 overall, 4-0 SWAC) rode the starting pitching of T.J. Renda (complete-game shutout) and Normando Valentin (5 1/3 innings in first career start) to again set the tone for Alabama State, which has now won eight consecutive games heading into Tuesday’s 6 p.m. home game against the 10-2 UAB Blazers.
“I thought our pitching was excellent today until late in game two,” head coach Mervyl Melendez said. “We did a heck of a job on the mound and defensively. I’m very proud of our pitchers. T.J. Renda was back in form, pitched a gem, and pitched like he did all of last year. Valentin did a great job in his first career start, and pitched pretty well.”
Game 1 – Hornets 4, Miss. Valley St. 0: Renda (1-2) scattered 10 hits, walked none, and struckout 11 in throwing 83 of his 109 pitches for strikes. He struck out multiple hitters in the second and fourth innings, and forced Valley to leave 10 runners on base. Alabama State did all its scoring in the first four innings. Richard Amion led off with a double down the right field line, stole third, and scored on Marcus Swint’s single to left field. With one out, Richard Gonzalez doubled to right center, and scored on a two-out single by Emmanuel Marrero for a 2-0 Hornet lead.
In the second, Dillon Cooper hit his first home run of the year to left field to extend the Alabama State lead to 3-0.
In the third, Gonzalez drew a two-out walk and scored on Waldyvan Estrada’s double down the left field line for the final margin.
Amion, Swint, and Einar Muniz each went 2-for-4 in the opener.
Game 2 – Hornets 9, Miss. Valley St. 7: Playing as the visiting team in the nightcap, Alabama State got solo home runs from Amion and Branden Castro in scoring at least one run in each of the first six innings.
Amion, who went 3-for-4 with three runs scored, led off the first with a double to center, and scored on Gonzalez’s RBI single to left for a 1-0 lead.
In the second, Dexter Price doubled to left field, Cooper was hit by a pitch, and Raul Perez walked to load the bases. Muniz was hit by pitch, scoring Price. Cooper then scored on a dropped infield fly out to extend the Hornets’ lead to 3-0.
In the third, Swint’s one-out double to left field scored Branden Castro, who walked to give the Hornets a 4-1 lead.
Amion and Castro hit solo homers in the fourth and fifth innings, respectively, to give Alabama State a 6-1 lead.
After Valley added a run in the fifth, the Hornets scored three in the sixth. Muniz led off with a single through the left side. Amion then doubled to center, advancing Muniz to third. Gonzalez doubled to left field, scoring Muniz and Amion. Marrero followed, tripled to right center, scoring Gonzalez for a 9-2 Alabama State lead.
Gonzalez went 2-for-4 with one run scored and three RBI, Price went 2-for-2 with a run scored, and Muniz went 2-for 3 with one run scored and one RBI to pace the 12-hit attack.
Valley scored one in the sixth, and four in the eighth before Hunter McIntosh pitched the final 1 1/3 innings to get the save.
“It is important to get off to a good start in conference play,” Melendez said. “We have a good start; now we can’t look back. We have to look forward and continue to play good baseball. However, you have to give a lot of credit to Mississippi Valley. They kept fighting and it was a good test for our guys. I’m glad to see our guys fight through it. When adversity hits, what are you going to do? Today, our guys persevered to get the win.”
Bowling Stays in Top 20
MONTGOMERY – The 2013-14 Alabama State women’s bowling team is still nationally ranked at the 18th spot in the latest National Tenpins Coaches Association (NTCA) poll which was released last week.
Alabama State (53-30) clinched its first SWAC Regular Season Championship after going 6-3 during the SWAC East Round-Up and finishing the season 19-5 in the conference. The Hornets also finished 7-5 in the Track Kat Klash hosted by Sam Houston.
The team is led by Danielle Walker who was selected as the 2014 SWAC Bowling Player of The Year and named first team All-SWAC with a total pin fall of 5,637. While Kaila Ryan who was also selected as first team All-SWAC having a total pin fall of 5,427. While, Briana Wells was named second team All-SWAC with a 4,802 pin fall count. The team is ranked first in the conference with a pin fall count of 25,609 and an average of 914.6.
Still sitting at the top of the rankings is Arkansas State University (224), which received eight first place votes, while Nebraska (191) ranks second and received one first place vote and is tied with Maryland Eastern Shore.
Fairleigh Dickinson University is fourth with 177 points and Central Michigan is fifth, earning 159 points.
Stephen F. Austin is sixth while Sam Houston, Vanderbilt, Wisconsin-Whitewater and St. Francis rounded out the top 10 respectfully.
The Lady Hornets will travel to Nashville, Tenn. to compete in the Music City Invitational hosted by eighth ranked Vanderbilt March 7-9. The Hornets will try to complete their historical season when they travel to Arlington, Texas, to compete in the SWAC Championship March 21-24.
“I am proud of where we are as a team right now,” Head Coach Andrew Chatmon stated. “We are going to continue to work on our past mistakes and go from there. We have one more tournament prior to our conference championship tournament and that is what we need to prepare for.”
