The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
UAB
Houston
Baseball Clinches Series With 12-8 Win Over Houston
4/28/2012 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
April 28, 2012
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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. ---- The UAB baseball team collected 14 hits, including three each from Ivan De Jesus and Jeff Schalk, to lead the Blazers past Houston, 12-8, on Saturday afternoon at Young Memorial Field.
With the victory, UAB (25-20, 6-8 C-USA) clinched the series against UH (14-25-1, 3-10-1 C-USA) and will try for the three-game sweep on Sunday at 11:30 a.m. CT.
"We had a great offensive day and had a lot of quality at bats," head coach Brian Shoop said. "Today we had some balls that found holes early, and they hit some balls at us early, and we got on a roll by squaring some balls up and getting some two-out hits."
Similar to how Houston performed the night before, UAB jumped out early. The Blazers scored eight runs during the first three innings, including five against UH starter Jordan Mannisto (1-3) who was saddled with the loss.
Schalk accounted for the first two runs of the day for the Blazers, lacing a two-run bomb, his second of the season, to right-center field to give the home squad an early 2-0 cushion.
An inning later, John Frost cracked a two-out double into the gap in right-center to bring home Keith DePew and Ryan Prinzing. Later in the frame with runners on first and third, Schalk, who had singled, stole second and Frost raced home for a successful double steal to give UAB a 5-0 lead.
Three more runs came around to score in the third, again with two outs, as Jacob German (double), DePew (double) and Prinzing (single) all laced consecutive RBI hits, ballooning the lead to 8-0.
Blazer starter Ben Bullard threw zeros up on the board for the first five frames and only allowed two runs to score in seven total innings for work. UH scored single runs in the sixth and seventh against the right-hander, who earned the win to improve to 5-4 on the season. Bullard scattered five hits, allowed two runs (one earned), walked one and fanned four in his eighth quality start in 11 appearances this season.
Trailing 8-2 entering the top of the eighth, the Cougars clawed their way back into the game, making the contest dicey for the Blazers. UH loaded the bases with three straight singles, before John Cannon plated all three runners on a bases clearing double. An RBI single from Taylor White, made it a two-run ball game (8-6), and put runners on the corners with only one out.
With Chase Mallard now on the mound for the Blazers, his battery mate, Jacob German, made a crucial play behind the dish. On a pitch in the dirt, White veered to far off first and was picked off by German in a rundown for the second out as the Blazer defense was able to keep Cannon on third. Mallard induced a routine ground out to shortstop to escape without any further damage and the two-run lead still intact.
"German made a huge play for us on the dirt ball in the eighth inning with runners on first and third," Shoop said. "That is a tough play with a runner on third you are dealing with and he handled it perfectly. He closed the distance and got the out and didn't let the base runner on third score."
UAB answered in the bottom half of the eight with four runs of its own, as the two teams combined to score eight runs in the eighth frame.
Of the four runs scored, two came home on wild pitches, one on an error and the other on a pinch hit RBI single from Harry Clark. The junior knocked a RBI single through the left side as the Blazers earned their second win in as many days against the Cougars.
Schalk and De Jesus led the UAB 14-hit attack with three hits each. Prinzing reached base four times, by way of two hits and two walks and DePew collected a pair of hits and scored twice.
Chase Mallard earned his second save of the season pitching the final two innings for the Blazers to preserve the victory.
