LORMAN, La. (March 22, 2019) – Mississippi Valley State baseball cruised to a 15-5 road victory at Alcorn State in their first game of a three-game weekend series at McGowan Stadium. The Delta Devils scored a season-best runs (15), RBI (14), stolen bases (10), walks (6) and in triples (1) while tying a season-high in doubles (4). Defensively, MVSU combined for 10 strikeouts led by sophomore pitcher Nicholas Johnson's eight retired batters.
MVSU improves to 3-8 overall with a 3-4 SWAC record while Alcorn drops to 6-14 overall and 1-5 in conference play.
Three Delta Devils finished with three hits in their best offensive outing of the season. Senior Marshall Parrish recorded five RBI and had a double, senior Wendell Rieves had four RBI, scored three runs, stole two bases and knocked in a pair of doubles while senior Frederick Spencer stole three bases, had two RBI and scored two runs. Senior Morgan Lomax scored three runs, stole two bases and had two hits while Willie Johnson also had two hits, scored two runs and stole a base.
The Delta Devils offense got off to a quick start putting up five runs in the first inning, two in the second, one in the third, four in the fourth and three runs in the fifth inning.
In the first inning, Rieves doubled to left field for two RBI scoring both Lomax and junior Aaron Barkley. Spencer followed and RBI singled to center field scoring Rieves for a 3-0 early lead. The opening inning onslaught continued for MVSU with Parrish blasting a two-run double to right field bringing in Spencer and senior Jordan Sawyer.
Then in the second inning, a sudden miscue by the Braves extended the MVSU advantage to 7-0. Johnson singled to shortstop, stole second base and then crossed home plate on a fielding error by Alcorn. Barkley was next and sacrifice flied out to right field scoring Lomax for the second run of the inning.
Parrish's second hit of the evening went for an RBI on a single to third base in the third inning scoring Sawyer. Sawyer reached after a drawing a walk. Four additional runs came in the fourth inning for the Delta Devils breaking out to an 11-0 lead. Redshirt sophomore Billy Leflore RBI tripled to right field scoring Barkley who reached on a fielding error by the Braves. Rieves brought in Leflore on an RBI single to shortstop and later scored on a single to left by Parrish. Both Spencer and Rieves scored on the play to close out a powerful fourth inning.
Alcorn came up with three runs on two hits in the bottom of the fourth inning. MVSU responded with three runs on four hits in the fifth. Sophomore Willie Johnson led off with a ground-rule double to left-center and then scored on an RBI single to left-center by Lomax. Lomax stole second and moved to third on a flyout before scoring thanks to an RBI double down the left field line by Rieves. Spencer singled to right-center sending Rieves home for the final MVSU run in a 15-5 blowout.
Nicholas Johnson tossed six innings and notched a season-high eight strikeouts. He walked one batter and surrendered eight hits in his first win of the season. Barkley pitched one inning striking out two batters.
The teams will return for game two on Saturday, March 23 at 3 p.m.
