Loyola Again Has Late-Inning Rally, Defeats Texas Tech

It’s too bad the Loyola Marymount baseball team isn’t running for office. The Lions just might find away to conquer the deficit.

In Friday night’s 13-8 win over visiting Texas Tech, Loyola strung together five seventh-inning runs after falling behind 8-7.

On Saturday, the Lions erased a 4-2 Texas Tech lead with two runs in the seventh inning and five in the eighth en route to a 10-5 victory at George C. Page Stadium in Westchester.

“I don’t think getting behind is something you should have in your game plan,” said Loyola Coach Dave Snow, “but it’s definitely a good sign for our club when we come back and win like we did.”

The Lions, ranked 15th in the nation by Baseball America, extended their winning steak to four and improved to 6-2. Texas Tech dropped to 1-3-1.

Loyola starter Mike McNary threw seven strong innings, fanning eight and yielding just four hits, but a rocky second inning gave Texas Tech a 4-0 lead.

Texas Tech’s Mike Beiras, a product of Mira Costa High and El Camino College, threw five scoreless innings and gave up just six hits. But six walks hurt him.

“That Beiras is doggone tough,” said Snow. “He got a little tired in the seventh inning (when he opened with two walks then left the game), but he did an outstanding job.”

Darryl Scott (3-1), who earned Friday’s win with 2 scoreless innings in relief, again spelled Loyola’s starter and picked up the victory, ending Texas Tech rallies in the eight and ninth with two strikeouts in each inning. Texas Tech’s Dwight Fruge took the loss. McNary walked four Raiders in the first two innings. Two free passes haunted him. Texas Tech’s Bob Deller led off the second inning with a walk and with two out McNary walked Jeff Boydston. Kevin Lowery singled home Deller, Mike Humphreys lined a McNary curved ball over the left-center field wall four pitches later, and suddenly Loyola was behind.

A Rick Allen double in the fifth and a sixth-inning single from Mike Bradbury helped Loyola cut it to 4-2. Then came the real carving.

McNary had retired 16 of 17 Raiders after his shaky start and the Lions responded, scoring two on two walks, a sacrifice and a ground single from Travis Tarchione before their five-run barrage in the eighth.

“Our offense really picked us up,” Snow said. “I give them a lot of credit.”

Senior Don Sparks capped the onslaught with a three-run blast to left-center off reliever Fruge that brought home junior Rob Cannon and senior Kirk Mears, who had picked up an RBI on a single.

Sparks, normally a cleanup hitter, pinch hit for Greg Wall in the Lion’s two-run seventh and guessed right in the eighth on his second homer of the season.

“I was looking off-speed and (Fruge) hung a curve ball,” said Sparks, a 6-2, 190-pound first baseman from Long Beach. “I didn’t go up there thinking home run and when you’re a cleanup hitter you don’t get many fastballs, so I had to think he was gonna throw a breaking pitch.”

Breaking balls also were on the mind of Raider Coach Tom Hays. “We hit the fastball well, but we have trouble with the breaking stuff,” Hays said. “McNary quieted us down with his excellent breaking pitch. We’ve just got to be mentally tougher.”

Hays, in his 18th year of coaching, is 12th in career wins among Division I baseball coaches but his team pales in experience and lacks the early outdoor exposure that’s helped Loyola.

“We’ve only been practicing outside about six times and our pitchers just aren’t ready,” he said. “They need three or four times outside before we can really compete and we’re still making some freshman mistakes in the field.”

Texas Tech catcher Brian Roper threw too late in a fifth-inning rundown that eventually allowed Loyola’s Allen to score on a Kirk Mears up-the-middle single, and Raider center fielder Boydston missed a sixth-inning cutoff that moved Allen to second after Greg Wall had advanced to third on Miah Bradbury’s line-out to center.

“We know we have to keep putting pressure on our opponents and it just seems to happen that we all pull together when we’re behind,” Sparks said. “We’re sort of known for coming back and we all compliment each other.”

The Lions could be doing the same today when they face Texas Tech at 1:00 p.m. Senior right-hander Scott Neil (0-0 with one save) will start for Loyola and right-hander Byron Farrell (0-0) will take the mound in his first appearance for the Raiders after suffering serious burns in a grease fire three weeks ago.

The Lions will challenge UCLA in Westwood Tuesday at 2 p.m. and play host to Long Beach State Wednesday at 2:30 p.m.