March 7, 2006

Box Score

ARLINGTON, Texas -- Randall Linebaugh pitched 6.0 strong innings, and Seth Fortenberry had two doubles and a triple as Baylor defeated Texas-Arlington 9-4 Tuesday night at Clay Gould Park. Baylor (10-3) has won three straight and four of its last five. The Bears also improved to 4-0 this season in Tuesday games. It was Baylor's first win at UTA (4-12) since 2002.

The key point for Linebaugh was the second inning when he loaded the bases with no outs and escaped unscathed. He struck out Kyle Rudy for the first out and then induced a double play off the bat of Kyle Thomason.

Baylor got on the board in the second as Kevin Russo led off with a double down the left-field line, advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt and scored on a Tim Jackson flare single down the right-field line. The Bears added three runs in the fourth, all with two outs. Kevin Sevigny plated the first run with a single to right that scored Jackson. After Beamer Weems walked, Matt Sodolak doubled down the right-field line, scoring Sevigny and Weems.

After a leadoff walk to Collin Garner in the third, Linebaugh recorded nine consecutive outs before Daniel Rieder's sixth-inning leadoff double. Two batters later, Justin Stevens scored Reider with a flare single that landed just inside the right-field line.

Linebaugh (1-0) scattered four hits with two walks against five strikeouts, a career high, for his second career victory. It was the longest outing of his career.

Baylor was quick to answer UTA's sixth-inning run with a single spot in the top of the seventh. Fortenberry tripled to right-center and later scored on a Jeff Mandel groundout. The Mavericks scratched for an unearned run in the bottom of the seventh only to see the Bears put three on the board in the top of the eighth. Zach Dillon had an RBI single, Russo plated another run with an RBI groundout and Fortenberry capped the inning with an RBI double.

UTA got a pair of runs, one unearned, on a hit, a hit batsman and two Baylor errors in the bottom of the eighth.

Fortenberry finished 3-for-4 with two runs scored. Hammock, Jackson and Sodolak had two hits each as eight of Baylor's nine starters hit safely. Eight of the nine starters also had at least one RBI on the night.

Baylor returns home this weekend, hosting Louisiana Tech, Michigan and Pacific for the inaugural Quala-T Imprints Baylor Classic. The Bears face Pacific at 6 p.m. CST Friday, Michigan at 6 p.m. Saturday and Louisiana Tech at 3 p.m. Sunday.