Close One: The Jaguar Baseball Team falls short against the Lamar Cardinals

This past Tuesday, March 16, the Southern University Jaguars faced off against Lamar University Cardinals in what was a battle against defenses. After a few hard losses and then a few great wins, Southern was hoping to regain their winning energy and add more wins to their overall record for this season.
Within the first inning, the game and players were already fast-paced and scoring. Lamar put two runs on the board at the top of the first, then followed by Southern scoring one extra run on top of their opponents, ending the first inning 2-3. Come the bottom of the second inning, Southern had 5 while Lamar trailed behind with 2.
Although they did come up short in the end, the Jag’s defense and determination in the next couple of innings is what stopped Lamar from pushing forward tremendously. Their outfield catchers were a main priority and advantage in this game and allowed the Jaguars to stop the Cardinals from scoring so much. Because of this, they were able to hold them off for 2 straight innings without allowing them to make a point before they tied the game up 5-5 in the 6th inning. After it became tied, it became a battle of the defenses as both teams did not allow the other to score a run for four more straight innings until the eleventh inning.
The Cardinals fought back and caught up with a blink of an eye and although the Jags did hold their composure well, once it got to the 10th inning and they were tied, both teams knew it was a 50/50 chance on who would win. It then became a heated and tense game of baseball. The tension was mounting as everyone continued to watch and wait as neither team was letting the other score.
The game against the Lamar Cardinals went on for 11 innings before two Cardinal players scored a point at the top of the 11th inning and the Jaguars were not able to score any at the bottom. This ended the game with a score of 7-5 with Lamar University winning this game. Unfortunately, Lamar was able to outlast the Jags, as they defeated them in a game of longevity and celebrated victory.
“We played hard but didn’t have enough to do it at the end,” Southern Jaylen Armstrong, a sophomore from Southaven, Mississippi said. “We’re going to come back out here tomorrow and work and get ready to go for this weekend. (Home run) First one, it felt real good. I didn’t even feel it off the bat so I knew it was gone. Great swing, great approach and a good way to get on top.”
“At the end of the day it’s baseball,” Armstrong said. “It’s a tough game. Three out of 10 is considered good. We’ll come back and get right tomorrow.” With the Jags trailing behind in this game, this brought their overall record to be 5-10 as they waited to play their next game against Rice University, Friday, March 19th.