Tulane University
Northwestern State
Tulane Offense Sparked by Four Home Runs
Mar 4, 2009 | Baseball
March 4, 2009
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New Orleans- The Tulane offense came back with a vengeance Wednesday afternoon, recording 12 runs on 14 hits to lift the Green Wave club over the visiting Northwestern State Demons, 12-3.
Tulane was ignited by a first-inning grand slam off the bat of Sam Honeck. Honeck (2-5, 4 RBI), who belted his second grand slam of the year over the right field wall, hit a solo shot in Tuesday night's game, bringing his home run tally to three on the season.
Tulane starter Taylor Rogers went back to work in the second with a 4-2 lead and went about his job, shutting down the Northwestern State offense. Rogers, who earned his first win of the young 2009 season, threw 7.0 solid innings, striking out five while not issuing a base on balls and retiring an impressive 19 of the 26 batters faced.
"After I settled down after the first inning, I was able to throw strikes and let the defense work," Rogers said. "They played really well behind me today and they swung the bats well so it made it easy."
Seth Henry (2-4, RBI, BB) followed Honeck's suit, taking the first pitch of the third inning to left field for his second home run of the year, picking up another run for the Wave, 5-3. Rogers went back to the hill and struck out the Demon side in the top half of the fourth, quickly getting his team back in the dugout to finish their offensive attack.
Josh Prince was coming off a 3-4 showing on Tuesday night and continued to stay hot in Wednesday's finale with the Demons. Prince led off the bottom half of the fourth by taking Demon reliever Andrew Plotkin deep for a lead-off home run, giving Prince his first of three hits on the day and the first of three runs during the frame. Rogers headed back to work on the mound in the fifth with a comfortable 8-3 lead and quickly retired the side in order in the Northwestern State half of the fifth.
"Getting beat in our park puts a fire under you, no matter who it is," Prince said, referencing the 10-6 extra-inning loss to Northwestern State on Tuesday. "We had to prove a point that we are good and we can compete at a very high level. We felt like we needed to get a good start to the weekend and get something going before USC comes to town."
Tulane picked up another run in the fifth when Prince scored on a Nick Boullosa (2-2, RBI, 2 SB) single, putting Tulane up 9-3 going into the sixth. The Green Wave offense wasn't finished yet, as Drew Allain got his chance to pick up some RBI when he took a 2-2 count to deep left field for his first home run of the year, knocking in Jared Dyer and Steve Moritz (2-5, 2 RBI), who had reached on a fielding error and base hit, respectively, giving the Wave the 12-3 win over the Demons.
The Green Wave will take the field again on Friday night, as the Trojans of the University of Southern California come to town for a three-game set. Friday night's opener is slated for a 6:30PM first pitch.
