LYNCHBURG, Va. – Sam Houston played from behind on Saturday afternoon and could not come all the way back as the Liberty Flames completed a weekend sweep of the Bearkats with a 9-3 win at Worthington Field.
For the second straight day the Bearkats (17-12, 3-6 CUSA) found themselves down early thanks to a longball when a 3-run homer by Macaddin Dye in the third inning. That big swing put the Flames (13-14, 5-1 CUSA) in front and starter Nick Moran made that lead stand up for 7.0 innings before handing it over to the bullpen.
The weekend marked the first sweep of the Kats since DBU took down Sam Houston three straight times in February of 2022. It is also the first time Sam Houston has been swept in a conference series since Southeastern Louisiana won four straight games on the opening weekend of Southland Conference play in 2021.
Moran was on his game on Saturday and evened his record at 2-2, allowing three runs – all unearned – on seven hits and did not walk a batter while punching out seven. Freshman Ben Blair then came on for the second time on the weekend and picked up the final six outs of the game.
The Kats went with Michael Watson to open the game and he put out five Flames on strikes, but lasted just 3.1 innings before falling to 1-1 on the year with the loss. Chandler David came on to strike out four Liberty hitters in 3.0 innings of relief before three relievers went the rest of the way.
Offensively the Kats had just six hits on the day with only Walker Janek's RBI double in the fifth going for extra bases. Caleb Cotton had a pair of singles and Jake Tatom had a single, stolen base and a run scored in that inning as well, an inning which accounted for each of Sam Houston's three runs of the game.
Liberty was able to get out to an early lead in the opening inning with a run set up by a 1-out triple by Tanner Marsh off the wall in center field. He scored on a sacrifice fly by Aidan Sweatt and two innings later Liberty made it a 4-0 lead when Dye left the yard with a 3-run homer with two outs in the third.
Another Flame triple, this one from Camden Troyer in the fourth, got home the fifth Liberty run of the game and chased Watson from the hill in favor of David. The righty reliever minimized the damage in the fourth and put up zeros in the fifth and sixth to keep the Flames in check.
Meanwhile, the Bearkat offense finally got something going against Moran, striking for three runs in the top of the fifth to get back in the game. A single by Jake Tatom got the inning going and the first Flame error of the day helped out the Bearkat cause, but it was balls on the infield by both Caleb Cotton and Jace Martinez which plated the first two runs. Walker Janek then delivered an RBI double into the right-field corner to score Cotton and make it a 5-3 game.
But Liberty got two of those runs back in the bottom of the seventh, thanks in part the first Bearkat error of the weekend. That miscue put Marsh on base with one out in the inning and singles by both Sweatt and Todd Hudson got the two runs home.
Liberty would go on to get a pair of runs in the eighth on an opposite-field solo homer by Brayden Horton and an RBI grounder by Sweatt, his third RBI of the day.
UP NEXT
The Kats will now return to Texas, but stay on the road when it heads to Beaumont on Tuesday to take on the red-hot Lamar Cardinals. First pitch for Tuesday's midweek at Vincent-Beck Stadium is set for 6:00 p.m. with the game to be streamed on ESPN+.
