Gonsoulin guides Pilots to home opening win
By: Lance Snow
Updated: February 8, 2013
Courtesy LSUS athletics:
SHREVEPORT,
La. - Ben Suit earned his first save of the young season as he struck
out Brandon Bohanon to close the door on the University of
Houston-Victoria
Jaguars lifting the no. 2 LSU Shreveport Pilots to a 7-6 win in the
home-opener at Pilot Field.
The
Jags got the scoring started with a single run in the opening inning
but the Pilots scorched back with a six spot in the bottom half of the
inning. Ridge
Gonsoulin started his perfect 3-3 night at the dish with a two-run homer
to give the Pilots the lead 2-1 while K. J. Semien and Kym Barthel each
drove in a run with a single in the inning as the Pilots led 6-1 after
one.
UHV
(2-1) settled down changing pitchers after the first and held the
Pilots to just two hits until the eighth inning when Gonsoulin started
the inning with
a single on the first pitch he saw from Jose Muniz. He later advanced to
second on a wild pitch but the next two Pilots could not bring him
around. Semien answered the call with a rbi-single to left which proved
to be the game-winner as he finished with a pair
of hits and rbis.
Paul
Barton (1-0) picked up the win for the Pilots tossing the first five
innings of the contest allowing six hits, two earned runs, three walks,
and five
strikeouts. Barton did a decent job of pitching out of trouble despite
allowing base runners in every inning as the Jags stranded seven of
their 13 base runners with him on the mound.
The Pilots bullpen struggled until Jacob Byrd came in in the top of the 8th to retire the final batter of the inning leaving
another runner in scoring position. Byrd returned to the mound for the 9th
but did not get much help defensively as the Pilots committed two
errors that helped the Jags close to within one. To help shift the
momentum LSUS went
to the pen for the 5th and final time calling on Suit to finish the game.
LSUS
had eight hits with Gonsoulin and Semien being the only hitters with
multi-hits. The lone offensive standout for UHV was Tyler Steiner who
was the only
one with at least two hits as he finished 2-5. The UHV starter Nathan
Falkenstine (0-1) suffered the loss allowing most of the damage in the
bottom of the first tossing 35 pitches.
