Hounds earn series win over St. Mary's with 10-5 victory

Eastern New Mexico University's baseball team did what it needed on Sunday and remained alive for a possible Lone Star Conference tournament berth, although the Greyhounds' work is cut out.

They opened an 8-0 lead through five innings against St. Mary's and earned a 10-5 win over the Rattlers at Greyhound Field, notching their second consecutive LSC series triumph.

ENMU (21-25, 19-25 LSC) stands two games behind Arkansas-Fort Smith (21-23, 21-23) and St. Edward's (21-25, 21-23), who are tied for the eighth and final spot in the LSC meet. The Hounds, who have splits with both and hold tiebreakers over both by virtue of 2-2 splits against first-place West Texas A&M and third-place Angelo State, end the regular season this weekend with four tilts at second-place Lubbock Christian (32-14, 31-13).

Meantime, UAFS hosts fourth-place Texas-Tyler (26-18, 26-18) and St. Edward's plays at seventh-place Texas A&M International (22-24, 22-22).

In Sunday's contest, sophomore right-hander Adrian Rubio was the first of seven ENMU hurlers and threw four scoreless innings. St. Mary's made it interesting with a four-run eighth to close to 8-5, but the Hounds added two in the bottom half and sophomore right-hander Zach Raichel set the Rattlers down in order in the ninth.

Junior third baseman Landon Pyles drove in three runs, two with a fourth-inning double which was followed by junior left fielder Luciano Terilli's two-run single to make it 7-0.

All nine starters had at least one hit for the Hounds. Senior shortstop Jake Elizondo keyed St. Mary's eighth-inning comeback bid with a two-run single.

St. Mary's 7, ENMU 5 (Saturday) – ENMU junior right-hander Julian Lopez and St. Mary's sophomore right-hander Kaleb Gauna entered with respective earned run averages of 9.82 and 7.71, but both were on in Saturday's tilt.

In the end, Gauna (5-3) got the better of it, going seven innings and allowing seven hits and three runs (two earned). Lopez, meantime, went six solid frames, allowing six hits and two runs.

The Rattlers scored twice in the third and never relinquished the lead. With the score 2-1 after six, both teams tallied in each of the final three cantos.

"He's had a couple of (other) good starts," first-year St. Mary's coach Frank Kellner said of Gauna. "He's just starting to mature a little bit. For everybody, when you locate your fastball you give yourself a chance to go deep into a game."

Lopez (1-6) threw five shutout innings on Feb. 25 at St. Edward's in a game the Hounds eventually lost 9-8, but ENMU coach Riley Price said this was his best outing.

"J-Lo did what we needed him to do," he said. "The bullpen did not ... do the job today."

It was the longest outing of the season for Lopez, who walked just one and struck out four.

"I just tried to slow the game down a little bit and hit my spots," he said. "I was trying to let (hitters) get themselves out.

"Defensively, we played really well. When we're all doing our jobs, we can be one of the tougher teams to beat."

Rattlers senior designated hitter Trey Guajardo delivered a two-out, two-run single in the ninth for a 7-4 lead. Elizondo and senior center fielder R.J. Galvan also had two RBIs apiece for St. Mary's.

Most of the Hounds' damage came from the bottom third of the lineup. Junior Tucker Gideon, senior Cooper Hamilton Pyles were a combined 6-for-11 with four runs scored and two RBIs, the latter coming on Pyles' triple in the seventh.

Meantime, the top of the order, with five players hitting .310 or better, went a combined 5-for-26 with one run scored and three RBIs.

ENMU 7-9, St. Mary's 0-8 (Friday) – The Hounds got the series off to a flying start, dominating for the most part in the opener and then pulling out a seesaw walkoff win in Game 2 in a pair of seven-inning tilts.

Junior right-hander Gavin Perry (7-4) allowed three hits over 5 1/3 innings in the lidlifter before Raichel faced four batters and got the final five outs with the help of a pair of double plays.

ENMU had nine hits in the contest, with Terilli going 3-for-3 with three RBIs and a run scored. Terilli hit a two-run single and junior first baseman Beau Preston added a two-run double in the Hounds' five-run fourth, making it 6-0, while junior catcher Daniel Pruitt capped the scoring with his fourth home run of the campaign leading off the sixth.

Galvin went 0-for-3 in the contest and saw his streak of 31 consecutive games reaching base come to an end. He then went 0-for-4 in the nightcap, although he did drive in a run with a fourth-inning groundout.

In Game 2, junior designated hitter Jonathan Baileys hit a three-run triple and scored on Pruitt's grounder for a 4-0 Hounds lead in the first, but the Rattlers countered with four-run stanzas of their own in the second and fourth for an 8-7 advantage.

Terilli's RBI groundout tied it in the fifth before Pyles drove in the go-ahead run in the sixth with an infield hit off senior left-hander Andrew Girod (3-1), who suffered his first loss since Feb. 11, 2023 – a stretch of 23 appearances without a setback.

Junior left-hander Ruger Bravo (3-2) relieved starter Josiah Estrella after the first three Rattlers reached base in the fourth and allowed just three hits over the final four innings. Tucker went 4-for-4 and scored three times, while Terilli was 2-for-3 with two RBIs.

Pyles, junior second baseman Demetrio Archuleta and junior shortstop Willie Ponce all added a pair of knocks to ENMU's 14-hit attack.