No. 14 Loyola loses twice at Faulkner Thursday

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – The Loyola University New Orleans baseball team dropped two games against the Faulkner Eagles on Thursday, first losing 12-8 before a close 5-4 defeat. The 14th-ranked Wolf Pack and Faulkner will close out the regular season at 12 p.m. on Friday. 
 

GAME 1: Faulkner 12, #14 Loyola 8

Loyola had the early momentum with a four-run second inning. Reed Duthu and Drew Lee started the frame with a single and a double to score the first run, then Myles Liggans, JJ Garcia, Jaxon Buratt, and Nathan McDonald all singled in consecutive at-bats to make the lead four, 4-0. 
 

Faulkner, however, responded with an eight-run third inning and another run in the fourth to jump out to a 9-4 lead. Loyola put up a couple of runs in the fifth to cut the deficit to three, 9-6, as Liggans was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded and Duthu scored on a wild pitch. After that, though, the Eagles pushed three more runs across in the bottom half, 12-6, to keep the momentum in their dugout. 
 

Colin Cure had an RBI in the sixth, and Garica got a sacrifice fly in the seventh to plate Loyola's final two runs. 
 

GAME 2: Faulkner 5, #14 Loyola 4

Loyola, again, scored the game's first run in the second game of the doubleheader, too, with two runs in the third inning. With the bases loaded, Cure picked up the RBI on a sac fly to center, then Ayden Authement had an RBI base hit to left to make it a 2-0 advantage. 
 

Faulkner scored three times in the bottom half of the inning, and when Loyola scored a run in the top of the fourth, the Eagles answered again, 4-3. That happened again in the sixth as well, bringing the game to its final score of 5-4. Garcia had a sac fly in the third to plate Jovan Swasey, and Buratt had an RBI fielder's choice in the sixth. Loyola stranded two base runners in both of those innings, though, while its total for the game was 10. 
 

Pack Facts

• Reed Duthu went 2-for-3 with three runs in Game 1, adding another hit in Game 2. 

• Ayden Authement made his return to the field on Thursday, singling in each game. 

• Drew Lee caught one runner stealing in Game 1, bringing his career total to 21 runners caught stealing. That's the seventh-most in program history since 2005. 

• Lee also had a double, his seventh of the year.