Scorpions sweep Bulldogs out of town

The University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College found out that the Jarvis Christian College bulldogs had a much worse bark than bite.

A much more effective noise was the sound of the Scorpion bats pounding 13 runs on 14 hits giving them a three-game sweep over JCC in the final game of the series 13-8 at Scorpion Field on Saturday afternoon.

Coach Joel Barta's Scorpions (18-27, 5-4) own second place in the Red River Atlantic Conference South Zone with only three games remaining in the conference schedule and he likes where they stand.

"We're as good as we can be," We've got some health issues but you can't ask for another situation then what we're in right now. If we want to go and get that two seed we're in as good a position as we could be in."

Starting pitcher Tony Lerma (5-5) had a quality outing giving up four runs (two earned) while scattering four hits with four strikeouts in seven innings of work.

"He didn't have his best stuff but that's what is nice about someone in the front of your rotation that is mature. (Him) saying ‘hey I don't have my best stuff but I'm still going to go out and do my job.'"

Offensively the Scorpions put runs on the board in every frame except for the sixth but even then they had runners in scoring po-sition.

Tied at 3-3 in the bottom of the fourth the Scorpions broke the game loose scoring four runs on four hits that included two critical Bulldogs errors that extended the inning.

With the bases loaded Ryan MacDonald reached first on a RBI fielders choice force out at second.

Then JCC second baseman Brian Harris tried to make a heads-up play attempting to throw out catcher Gilberto Puente at third but Harris' throw went astray rolling towards the fence next his own dugout allowing Puente to cross the plate for a 5-3 advantage.

Jorge Camorlinga came up next and he crushed a hanging off-speed pitch to left adding the third run of the inning.

Two batters later outfielder Andres Monterrubio knocked in the final run bringing home Camorlinga extending the UTB-TSC lead to 7-3.

The Scorpions were relentless with the Bulldogs and mounted a 13-4 lead into the ninth inning.

Then things got a little shaky.

Reliever Zach Moya looked in control with one away but two errors and two singles later the JCC put up four runs.

The momentum killer was an apparent soft dribbling hit by Bulldog Ruben Perez who seemingly beat out the throw as first baseman Tyler O'Neal leaped down from catching a high toss but stepped on the bag in time to get Perez out to the dismay of the JCC dugout.

"They're team played well," Bulldogs coach Malcom Walker said. " They hit the ball when they had to we just had too many errors and couldn't overcome them."