The Sherman Shadowcats completed the sweep of the Baton Rouge Rougarou Wednesday night, taking a 10-3 victory at Veterans Field in Sherman, Texas. It was the first time these two teams met as the Shadowcats are one of two new Texas Collegiate League teams.
Unlike Tuesday night’s first meeting, the Rougarou found ways to score on Wednesday, mostly thanks to third baseman Jake McCann. He hit an RBI single in the second inning to score Jack Marcantel, who had doubled to start the inning.
McCann then added a solo home run in the seventh inning, which was followed by a single by catcher Micah Landry. Landry went to third on a single by Brock Louque and scored on a single by Josh Lim.
In all the Rougarou finished with nine hits (doubles by Lim and Marcantel), five walks and four hit batsmen.
The Shadowcats got seven hits off of pitchers Gabe Hodges, Caleb Klug, Colt Lejeune, Jordan Ard and Carson Robb. They walked five, hit four, and struck out seven.
But one of those hits was a soaring 3-run home run by Sherman cleanup hitter Ellington Jefferson. The Shadowcats added another run in the second inning and six in the third on four hits, two errors and a hit batter.
“Obviously we got off to a rocky start today,” Rougarou skipper Mike Forbes said. “They scored three in the first inning off of one swing of the bat. They hit the ball and we didn’t. We went cold this series with our bats. We came up with a few good swings toward the middle but by then the deficit was just a little too much. The guys are working. We put in a lot of work in the cages before the game. Baseball has the tendency to come back around. We’ve just got to keep swinging.”
The Rougarou head back to Baton Rouge to face the other new TCL team, the Abilene Flying Bison, Thursday night at 7 p.m. at Goldsby Field.
By Lori Lyons, Rougarou Writer