Chris Mangan

It was a rough weekend for the SDSU baseball team.

The Jacks were swept in a three-game series by Central Arkansas by the scores of 14-3, 8-7 and 5-4 in Conway, Ark.

In the first two losses, the big inning hurt the Jacks. In game one, the Bears sent 15 batters to the plate in the second inning, scoring 10 runs and putting the game away early.

“(There) wasn’t much we could do, they had like nine or 10 hits in the inning and were hitting the ball hard all over the field,” head coach Ritchie Price said. “Sometimes that just happens in baseball.”

In game two, the big inning was helped by Jackrabbit errors. With the Jacks holding a 7-3 lead over the Bears heading into the bottom of the seventh, Central Arkansas batted around, scoring five runs thanks in part to three SDSU errors. Kirby Morsching took the loss on the mound, even though the senior did not give up an earned run in one-and-two-thirds.

“Baseball is a game of big innings. Defensively, we made some physical mistakes on Saturday that lead to us blowing the lead,” Price said. “The only thing you can do is not feel sorry for yourself and hang your head; just come back and try to make the next play.”

Central Arkansas finished the sweep on March 1 by holding off a late Jackrabbit rally. Trailing 5-1 in the top of the seventh, the Jacks used a throwing error, a wild pitch and a sacrifice fly to pull within one. The Jacks had a runner on second in the top half of the eighth but could not get the tying run across.

Other than the first day, Price was pleased with the pitching staff. Both Mike Robinson and Layne Somsen pitched six strong innings, but both came away with losses.

“I thought we pitched great the last two days,” Price said. “We got good starts out of both Robinson and Somsen, [Matt] Spinar pitched great and Kirby was outstanding.”

The Jacks will try to end their three-game losing streak when they travel to Lincoln to square off against Nebraska on March 4 before heading to Minneapolis March 6 through 8 where they will take on Western Michigan, Illinois State and Minnesota.

“Winning is a bystander of playing well,” Price said. “Winning is something that you cannot control. If we can continue to play hard and get to the point where we play well in all four phases of the game – pitching, hitting, defense and base running for a complete nine innings – then it will all take care of itself.”