Eagles throttle Bulldogs

A&M-Texarkana opens series against Jarvis with 11-1 win

Senior Teddy Henderson didn’t pitch like he had an ailing arm Friday night at George Dobson Field.

The West Monroe, La., native scattered four hits, walked two and struck out six in pitching Texas A&M UniversityTexarkana past Jarvis Christian College, 11-1.

Scheduled for nine innings, the game was shortened to seven because of the Red River Conference’s 10-run rule. The Eagles improved to 26-17 overall and 13-6 in RRC play, two games back of front-running LSU-Alexandria. The Bulldogs slipped to 24-21 on the year and 11-8 in conference.

“It was nice to have Teddy back on the mound; he pitched careful, but pitched well,” said A&M-Texarkana coach Steve Jones. “He hadn’t started in over a month because of an arm injury. He did pitch an inning a couple of times and got hit a little bit. Teddy got is secondary stuff going, and this was a different Friday than what we have had going.”

The two teams clash again

today in a doubleheader starting at 1 p.m.

“We struggled a bit last week offensively, but we talked; we didn’t make any adjustments after last Friday’s game, but we did a really good job of coming back and swinging the bat tonight,” Jones said. “We got their starter out early, and got to their bullpen.

“These guys (Jarvis Christian) are way better than what they showed today. They threw their number three starter in this game and we’ll see two better arms tomorrow that we’ve got to handle. Right now the first game Saturday is the most important game for us.”

The Eagles unloaded on Jarvis starter Jerry Flores (2-3), who could only get two outs in the first inning. The hard-throwing lefty gave up seven hits, the final three being the infield variety.

Cole Beckham hit Flores’ second offering into right field for a single, and raced all the way to third when the ball got past the outfieldeer. Catcher Michael Moore followed suit three pitches later with a single to make it 1-0. Cameron Frost singled to left, and two outs later George Gugino doubled home courtesy runner Heath Eubanks and Cade Thomason to make it 3-0.

Chase Beebe, Austin Vicknair and Kolton Perfect legged out infield hits with Beebe and Vicknair scoring from second base.

A&M put the contest out of reach with six more runs in the fourth.

Bulldog reliever Tyler Hansberg hit Beckham and Moore to start that big inning. A run-scoring single by Frost ensued, and Thomason walked to load the bases.

Eubanks and Frost scored on a single by Zach Boehler, and Gugino made it 11-0 with a triple down the right field line.

Jarvis Christian avoided a shutout in the sixth when Carlos Andrade homered over the right field fence.