No. 14 Baseball falls in regular-season finale

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – The Loyola Wolf Pack baseball team dropped their regular-season finale to Faulkner on Friday, 11-7. Loyola finished the regular season with a 32-17 overall record and a 15-12 mark in the Southern States Athletic Conference. 
 

The 14th-ranked Wolf Pack will now head to the SSAC Baseball Championship next week in Jackson, Tennessee, where they'll be the No. 6 seed and play in Pool B. First, Loyola will take on No. 3-seed Thomas at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, then No. 2-seed William Carey at 4 p.m. on Thursday, and finally, No. 7-seed Tennessee Southern at 7 p.m. on Friday. 
 

For the third time in the series, the Wolf Pack scored first, this time plating three runs in the first inning. Faulkner, though, had the game tied, 4-4, by the end of the third. Jaxon Buratt started the first-inning rally with a one-out triple, then Nathan McDonald, Colin Cure, Ayden Authement, and Reed Duthu singled during the next four at-bats, 3-0. Faulkner scored once in the bottom of the first before Loyola got that run back in the second thanks to an RBI single from Cure, 4-1. The Eagles, however, scored twice in the bottom of the second and once in the third to tie the game. 
 

Loyola put up another crooked number in the fourth inning, but Faulkner responded to tie the game again, 7-7, in the bottom half. JJ Garcia, who led off with a double, scored off a McDonald single, 5-4, and Duthu and Drew Lee picked up RBI on back-to-back at-bats, 7-4, later in the frame. The Eagles scored their three runs in the bottom of the fourth off three hits and an error. 
 

The Eagles only scored in one more inning the rest of the way, but their four-run sixth inning was enough to earn the win. Thomas Hakimian did well on the mound in the fourth and fifth innings before finding trouble in the sixth. Jordan McKenzie pitched a scoreless seventh inning, and Hunter Ponson sent the Eagles down 1-2-3 in the eighth. 
 

Pack Facts

• Jaxon Buratt went 3-for-5 at the plate with a single, double, and triple. 

• Colin Cure reached base all five times with two hits, two walks, and a fielder's choice. 

• Nathan McDonald, who had two hits, now leads the team with 59 hits for the season. 

• Ayden Authement and Drew Lee each also had two hits as five different Wolf Pack players had multi-hit games.