Tigers Rebound With All-Around Effort In Win Over Southern

One night after a late-inning meltdown, the TSU baseball team redeemed itself with a dominant performance which included five home runs in an 11-3 win over Southern.
 
Southern struck first in the second as leadoff error and a wild pitch led to a sac fly for a 1-0 lead.
 
TSU broke open the game in the third as Jayden Jones was hit by a pitch and moved to second on an error. Gabriel Vasquez’s walk followed by Daalen Adderley’s single and Alexander Olivo’s walk led to Jeffry Mercado’s RBI single for a 1-1 tie. Roderick Coffee, a Baton Rouge, La. native, broke it open with a grand slam over the left field fence for a 5-1 lead.
 
Vasquez opened the fifth with a single and Adderley’s two-run homer upped the lead to 7-1. Olivo followed it up with another home run for an 8-1 lead.
 
Southern crossed home two runs in the seventh to narrow the lead to 8-3 but Olivo’s shot in the bottom frame moved TSU on top 9-3. TSU’s Chase Cromer led the eighth off with a walk, stole second and scored on Gabriel Vasquez’s two-run homer for the final run of the day.
 
Mercado led TSU with a 3-for-5 outing which included an RBI and run scored. Vasquez, Olivo, Adderley and Coffee all had two hits with four RBI from Coffee.
 
Domenic Martinez struck out five in six innings while allowing only three hits to improve to 4-1.
 
The series concludes on Sunday at 1 p.m.