When it’s the middle of a hot summer night towards the end of a long season of baseball and your team is down 10-0, you need a spark.
For the Lake Charles Gumbeaux Gators, this week that spark was outfielder Matt Scott.
On Sunday, Scott hit what is commonly known as a “Little League home run” – a triple combined with an error, driving in two runs to give the Gumbeaux Gators the lead. Lake Charles would go on to score four more runs to take a 14-11 come-from-way-behind win over the Brazos Valley Bombers. He also hit a double in the game.
But not too many Gators fans were surprised. Scott was a spark in Saturday night’s game as well, hitting three singles and a home run to help the Gators to an 11-8 win over the Bombers.
For the week, Scott hit .417 with nine RBIs, two home runs and two doubles to earn Texas Collegiate League Player of the Week honors.
“Matt is doing a great job of putting aggressive swings on his pitches,” Gators coach James Landreneau said. “He has been a big part of our team’s recent success.”
Scott said he is feeling right at home with the Gators, who play their games at Joe Miller Park on the campus of McNeese State University.
“They contacted me to see if I could play the second half of the season,” he said. “I ended up playing with the Gators because I’m already going to be in Lake Charles.”
Scott will be attending McNeese this fall after transferring from Oregon, where a hip injury kept him off the field. Before that, the Houston native was at the University of Texas but saw limited play. Scott said his family is from the Lake Charles area and he actually visited McNeese before going off to cold and rainy Oregon.
And while this summer he is a Gator, he used to be a Bomber. Scott admits that may have helped him find some holes in the defense over the weekend.
“I played for the Bombers so I kind of know where they were standing,” Scott said. “I let one of our coaches know that (the pitcher) had thrown 75 pitches a couple of days ago and they weren’t going to keep him in long. And that was their last pitcher. They put in position players after that.”
With that inside information, Scott was able to help rally the Gators.
“We were in the outfield thinking, ‘I hope this doesn’t keep going like this,’” Scott said. “I hope it gets better. Our shortstop Bankston Lembcke was keeping us motivated so we said, ‘Well, if he believes, we might as well believe too.’”
By Lori Lyons