San Antonio - The top-ranked Trinity baseball team split a Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference doubleheader with Texas Lutheran University on Saturday.

The two games were lopsided wins for both teams, and the Bulldogs ended up taking two of three games in the weekend series from the Tigers.  Texas Lutheran won 15-5 in an eight-inning run-rule game to start Saturday's doubleheader, then Trinity rallied for a 12-4 win in the series finale.  Texas Lutheran won the series opener by a final score of 8-4 last night.  

"It was a very disappointing weekend for us," admitted Head Coach Tim Scannell. "I think this thing was built up to be a great battle between Trinity and TLU. But it's easy to see why Texas Lutheran is in first place. We were so impressed with their swings, offensively. They had depth in their lineup, they did not miss squaring a baseball, and they did a good job on the mound. So, credit to them. They have a significant lead in the SCAC, and we have to finish out the regular season as strong as we can. The final game of the weekend, that's the only positive we could pull out. We didn't just put our heads in the sand. We fought. Waters had the huge grand slam, and we had to scrap that 'W' at the end, and we did."

Trinity is now 28-7 overall, and stand second in the league standings with an 11-4 record.  The first-place Bulldogs are 21-10 overall, and 11-1 in conference play.

After TLU opened the game with three runs in the top of the first, the Tigers clawed across a run in the bottom of the inning, and then Andrew Waters crushed a grand slam in the second to put Trinity up 5-3. It was the first lead in the series for Trinity, and the Tigers never gave it up, and the Waters long ball proved to be the eventual game-winning RBI.

"The main thing we changed (in the second game) is we were trying to get the ball out of the air," said Waters after the Tigers took the series finale. "We had a lot of fly balls in the first two games. What we were trying to do was just drive the ball. The grass was a little short, and it actually played faster, and we didn't take advantage of that the first two games. We tried to do that in the last game. I really didn't try to do too much with the grand slam, and it went over the fence."

The Bulldogs closed to within one run after scoring in the fourth, but Trinity answered with a score of its own in the fifth, and then added another in the sixth on Nick Jewett's solo homer.  The Tigers posted three more runs on three hits in the seventh, pushing the lead to 10-4.  A two-run eighth inning put the finishing touches on the scoring in game two.

Waters batted 2-4 with four RBI and two runs, and Jewett went 2-4, while scoring two runs. Drew Butler drove in three runs for the Tigers at the end of the night. Connor Moore had a very efficient game on offense, reaching base all five plate appearances. He was 1-1 with four walks, as well as stealing three bases in the game.

Ryan Gray (6-3) was the starting pitcher, and hurled for five innings for the victory. Gray yielded two earned runs and struck out three batters. Chris Tate earned his third save, while pitching four shutout innings. He allowed five hits, and fanned seven Texas Lutheran hitters.

The first game started wtih Texas Lutheran plating a pair of runs to take the early lead, and never looked back.  The Tigers did get a run in the bottom of the inning, but the Bulldogs answered with three more in the second to pull away from the home team.

Colin Serkowski hit a three-run homer off the scoreboard in the bottom of the inning to bring the Tigers within a run at 5-4; however, Texas Lutheran's offense was only getting started.  The Bulldogs proceeded to score four more runs over the next two innings, and then added five runs in the sixth to make it 14-4.  

Jeremy Wolf hit a solo shot in the bottom of the seventh to extend the game another inning, but after Texas Lutheran scored again in the eighth, the game ended after Trinity stranded two runners on base in the bottom of the inning.

Serkowski batted 4-5 with three RBI, and Wolf hit 2-4. Moore scored twice, and finished the day with six runs scored in the two games. He also had two walks in the opener, bringing his total to six walks on the day. 

Teddy Turner (4-2) was charged with the loss, and was chased from the game in the second inning. Andrew Hoffman, Trevor Griffin, and T.J. Garhart finished off the game in relief for the Tigers. Garhart gave up one run on three hits over 2.1 innings, and struck out a team-best four batters.

Prior to the today's games, Trinity honored its 15 seniors, who will play their final regular season home game on Tuesday.  Trinity wraps up its home schedule by hosting the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor at 7:00 p.m.