Baseball loses two at Middle Georgia

COCHRAN, Ga. – The Loyola University New Orleans baseball team began another Southern States Athletic Conference series with a doubleheader against Middle Georgia State on Friday, dropping both contests, 8-4 and 11-5. Loyola (30-11, 16-7 in SSAC) will attempt to salvage a game in the three-game set when the two meet back up on Saturday at 12 p.m. CDT. 
 

Game 1: Middle Georgia 8, #12 Loyola 4

Errors plagued the Wolf Pack all day, but two in the first inning gave the Knights the 2-0 lead. A couple of singles led off the frame, then a bases-loaded double play by the Loyola defense allowed the first run to score. The first of two errors made it a two-run game. 
 

Loyola answered with two runs in the top of the second to even the score. Landon Manson started the frame with a solo home run, and Drew Lee followed that up with an RBI double three batters later with Ayden Authement on base. 
 

MGA scored five straight before the Wolf Pack could get back on the board, however. The Knights got a bases-loaded single in the third, 3-2, they used another error to plate one of two runs in the fourth, 5-2, and they got a two-run home run in the fifth to extend the lead even more, 7-2. 
 

Cole Romero got to double-digits home runs on the season with a solo blast in the sixth, 7-4, but the hosts added an insurance run in the bottom half of the inning to bring the game to its final, 8-4. 
 

Game 2: Middle Georgia 11, #12 Loyola 5

Middle Georgia quickly jumped out to a six-run lead after two innings, thanks to four runs in the first and four more in the second. Loyola struck first, though, in the top of the first inning. Brandon Mooney started the game with a double, and Cole Romero brought him home two at-bats later with a single through the left side. Trailing 4-1 in the second, Drew Lee and Landon Trosclair walked and was hit by pitch, respectively, to put two on with no outs, then a wild pitch scored pinch runner Authement, 4-2. The Knights came back with another four-spot on the scoreboard to jump ahead 8-2. 
 

Matthew Weil entered the game to pitch in the second inning, and he did a fantastic job shutting down the MGA bats in his five innings of relief work. The senior allowed five hits and struck out six throughout his shutout performance. 
 

The Wolf Pack tried to get back in the game with a three-run eighth inning. After Romero walked to start things, Manson smacked his second home run of the day to bring the deficit down to four, 8-4. Payton Cooper, who pitched the seventh inning, doubled during the next at-bat, followed by back-to-back groundouts scored the run, 8-5. 
 

The Knights, however, extended their lead to 11-5 in the bottom of the eighth, as Loyola stranded the bases loaded in the top of the ninth to end the game. 
 

Pack Facts

• Landon Manson hit a home run in each game Friday going 5-for-8 at the plate with 3 RBI. 

• Manson also homered in both sides of a doubleheader against Abraham Baldwin on March 7. It was his third series with multiple home runs, as he also had two against Mobile. 

• Cole Romero's 2-run home run in Game 1 was his 10th of the year. He's the first Wolf Pack player with double digits in that category since Allen Dennis (15) and Luke Clement (11) did so during the 2022 season, and he's just the ninth Wolf Pack player to ever have at least 10 homers in a season. 

• Matthew Weil struck out a season-high six batters with no earned runs in five innings out of the bullpen, his second-longest outing of the year.

• Friday's game 2 was the first game at Loyola in which Payton Cooper both pitched an inning and recorded a hit.