April 5, 2009
Box Score
ARLINGTON, Texas - Senior Ryan Robinson threw his first career complete-game shutout while leading UT Arlington to a 9-0 victory over Southeastern Louisiana on Sunday afternoon at Clay Gould Ballpark in Arlington. The Mavericks (16-14, 9-6) used eight runs combined in the fourth and fifth innings and multi-hit games from four players, including Andrew Kainer's 4-for-5 performance, to prevent the Lions (19-10, 10-5) from earning a series sweep this weekend.
"It was a very, very important game for us," Maverick head coach Darin Thomas said. "This leaves us just one game out of first place, rather than being three games out of the lead. Our pitching has been really good all year, if we can just find a way to play defense and score we are going to be alright."
After being held scoreless in nine innings on Saturday, the Mavericks went without a run through the opening four frames on Sunday before erupting for five runs in the fifth and three runs in the sixth inning.
Matt Otteman scored the Mavericks' first run with a single to right-center field, plating Jay Pitschka who led off the inning with a hit-by-pitch. Two batters later, Blake Holt received a walk to load the bases and then Chad Comer scored a run on a hit-by-pitch to give UT Arlington a 2-0 lead.
The big hit in the fifth inning was a triple down the left-field line by Ryan Davis which scored three runs to complete the Mavs' five-run inning.
That would be all the offense Robinson would need as the lefty from Southlake, Texas, scattered eight hits while walking one and striking out a batter. Robinson induced two groundball double plays to get out of the fourth and fifth and the Mavericks also turned a double play in the seventh inning.
"We wanted to get Robinson a start today," Thomas said. "One, he has been pitching well, and two, some of their better hitters are left-handed, so that kind of stifled that. He made us look good by putting him in there and he is capable of doing that every time out."
The Mavericks' plan worked as Robinson allowed only two hits (2-for-13, .154) against Southeastern's four left-handed batters.
"We got down two games to nothing, we had to come out and get a win," Robinson said. "All I did was pound the strike zone. And obviously with just one strikeout, it isn't like I was lighting the world on fire throwing it by anybody, I just let my defense work and it worked out today."
The shutout was even rarer considering the wind was blowing out to left field and had gusts up to 32 miles per hour.
"They had a lot of lefties that we worked in on and we tried to make righties and lefties hit the ball to right field to let the wind work for us," Robinson said. "As the game went on we moved back and forth and just kept mixing it up on their hitters."
Kainer scored two of the Mavericks final three runs with RBI singles in the sixth and seventh innings. Kainer led the Mavs going 4-for-5 while hitting his conference leading 14th double this season. Kainer's offensive performance also improved his career-high hit streak to 17 games.
"All I have been trying to do is drive the ball the other way," Kainer said. "I have no idea what sparked us, but that is the thing with baseball we just needed that one spark to get us going. Eventually it came through, and we knew it was going to come through."
Davis went 2-for-4 with a team leading and career-high four RBI, Tim Steggall went 3-for-5 with two runs scored and Otteman delivered his 11th double of the season going 2-for-4 with a pair of runs and two RBI.
UT Arlington will make a mid-week road trip to play Oral Roberts (12-8) on Tuesday, April 7, for a 6:30 p.m. first pitch at J.L. Johnson Stadium in Tulsa.
