Box Score 1 | Box Score 2 St. Mary’s swept Texas A&M International in Heartland Conference doubleheader action on Friday afternoon at Dustdevil Field on the TAMIU campus.  The Rattlers cruised to an 11-1 win in the opener before squeezing out a 2-1 win in game two.
 
The long ball helped boost the Rattlers to an easy win in the opener, with a 3-run blast by Jared Gonzalez in the second inning providing a 7-0 lead and a 3-run homer by Alex Rodriguez in the fourth inning pushing the lead to 11-0.  TAMIU scratched out an unearned run in the bottom of the fifth inning to cut the St. Mary’s lead to 11-1 but the game ended at that point due to the eight-run rule which takes effect after five innings of play.
 
St. Mary’s jumped out to a lead in the second game one a leadoff home run by Nicole Sardelich.  The score remained 1-0 until TAMIU tied the game with a run in the fifth inning.  Kristen LaBuhn lead off that frame with a double off the bottom of the center field fence.  Two outs later, Mariena Gallardo tied the game with a RBI line-drive double over the left fielder’s head.  The inning then ended when Cassandra DeLeon popped out to St. Mary’s pitcher Cyrstal Keller.
 
St. Mary’s didn’t take long to reclaim the lead with leadoff hitter Taylor Vidrine drilling a home run down the left field line in the top of the sixth inning to push the Rattlers to a 2-1 lead.
 
TAMIU threatened in the bottom of the sixth with Kyndall Reaves and Salina Mitchell reaching second and third base with just one out.  The threat ended, however, on a ground out to third by pitch hitter Kyndall Reaves and a pop-out to the shortstop by LaBuhn.
 
TAMIU (17-28, 5-4 Heartland) had one more shot to fight back from the one-run deficit but the game ended when the Dustdevils went down in order in the bottom of the seventh inning.
 
Besides contributing the team’s only RBI in the game, Gallardo turned in a solid pitching effort in a losing effort.  She allowed two earned runs on six hits with one strikeout and two walks in a complete-game effort.