FORT MYERS, Fla. - The St. Thomas (STU) Bobcats defeated Ave Maria to stay alive and advance to Saturday to face off against Warner at 1:30.
Diego Evans gets the win on the bump, going six innings with four strikeouts.
The Bobcats erupted for eight runs over the second and third innings and held on down the stretch to defeat Ave Maria, 13–9, in Game 2 of the Sun Conference Tournament.
After a quiet first, St. Thomas flipped the game in the second. Keuri Martinez delivered the big swing with a two-run single to open the scoring, and the lineup kept rolling. Luis Suarez followed with an RBI double, and Erick Ballenilla capped the inning with a two-run double of his own as the Bobcats jumped out to a 5–0 lead.
They didn't slow down in the third. Martinez was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to force in another run, Suarez added an RBI on a fielder's choice, and Ballenilla reached on an error that plated one more as the lead ballooned to 8–0.
Ave Maria finally answered in the fourth, but St. Thomas kept applying pressure. Ballenilla added an RBI single in the fifth before Daytan Biegel crushed a two-run homer to left-center, pushing the advantage to double digits. Eddie Novoa chipped in an RBI single later in the inning to make it 12–1.
From there, the Gyrenes mounted a steady comeback. They scored once in the fifth, three times in the sixth, and added another in the seventh to chip away at the deficit. St. Thomas got a key insurance run in the eighth on an RBI double by Freidy De La Rosa, which proved crucial as Ave Maria rallied again in the ninth with three runs to make things interesting.
Despite the late push, the Bobcats' early offensive explosion held up. Ballenilla led the charge with multiple RBIs, while Martinez and Suarez sparked the big innings at the top of the order. Biegel's home run highlighted a powerful middle of the lineup that produced all night.
St. Thomas now advances in the tournament bracket, riding momentum from an offense that showed it can strike fast—and in bunches.
-STU-
