San Antonio - The fourth-ranked Tiger baseball team began defense of its Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference Championship with a doubleheader sweep of Southwestern University on Saturday.

Trinity won the opening game 9-2, and then battled to take the second half of the twin bill 9-7. The Tigers have now won five games in a row, and stand at 16-3 overall, and 2-0 in the SCAC. The Pirates fall to 4-15 and 0-2. The two teams conclude their regular-season series with a single game at 2:00 p.m. Sunday.

Neither team scored in game one until the fifth inning, when the Tigers poured out six runs to take full control. Colin Serkowski's three-run double was the big blow in the inning, and the junior second-baseman drew praise from Head Coach Tim Scannell after the game.

"Serkowski had the hit of the afternoon. That base-clearing double was huge. He's a tough-minded kid."

Southwestern scored its runs in the sixth and seventh innings, while Trinity added one in the sixth - on a solo shot off the bat of Drew Butler - and two more in the eighth.  In that eighth inning, Serkowski drove in two more runs with his second double of the game.

Serkowski batted 2-5 and accounted for five RBI. Nick Jewett hit 3-4 in the game, and Brody Fehmel also went 2-3 with two runs scored.  Nelson (3-0) pitched for seven innings, fanning nine Pirates players, and giving up just four hits to earn the victory. Jeff Lonnecker entered in relief for the final two innings, and allowed only one walk, while striking out three batters.

Game two turned out to be a much tighter affair. Southwestern opened up with a two-run homer in the first inning to take the early lead.  Butler put the Tigers on the board with his RBI double in the bottom half of the inning to cut the lead in half.

Trinity then fired up three runs in the fourth inning, taking a 4-2 lead. The resilient Pirates tied the game with two runs in the fifth, though, and both starters were chased from the game.

In the sixth, Andrew Waters drove home a pair of runs to break the tie, and Connor Moore capped the three-run inning with his own RBI just two batters later. 

Waters hit 2-3 in game two, while driving in three of the team's runs. Carter McEachern, Jose Santos, and Jeremy Wolf scored two runs each in the finale. Michael Walker started on the mound, and pitched for four innings. Sean Cubley (2-0) hurled for two innings, and picked up the victory by allowing just one run on two hits. Chris Tate earned his second save of the season, by pitching the final three innings. Tate allowed only two hits, and struck out three players.

"I'm really proud of our club," continued Coach Scannell. "I think we're tired. Anytime you have to win three baseball games in 24 hours, that's a tough task. I thought we did a great job with mental focus. Our bats started to slow down a little bit, in terms of bat speed and directness. I was really proud of Troy Nelson, an unbelievable job in the first game, which set the whole tone. In the second game, I thought the difference was Chris Tate coming in and really shutting the door. I think it was a great day for us. Now we're on to tomorrow, though."