The UNA baseball team continued to stay hot with a three-game sweep of West Alabama this past weekend during senior festivities.

With a lot of emotion and tension of family members in attendance during senior weekend, the Lions showed a lot of determination and a sound defense to pick up the sweep, giving the Lions a 34-10 overall and a 12-4 conference record, putting a stranglehold on second place in the division with a five-game lead.

“It wasn’t one of our perfect weekends, but we found a way to hit in key times, and make good defensive stops,” said head coach Mike Keehn.

“There is a lot of emotion involved in senior week where each one tries to do a little more or press a little more, but it was neat to see the seniors get a sweep in the end.”

In game one Trey Mitchell (10-2) pitched to get his first win of his career against West Alabama. With four strikeouts in the game, Mitchell became UNA’s all-time strikeout leader with 196, passing Brock Hunton’s 193. With the win he moves into second place in career wins with 21.

Mitchell allowed five runs through four innings, but shut out UWA the final five innings in getting his seventh complete game, winning 7-5.

Offensively, the Lions started strong in the first with an RBI single by J.P. LaMunyon followed by a three-run homer by Jared Mothershed.

The Lions then scored two more runs in the third after the Tigers cut it to one run and then added an insurance run in the seventh and closed the game out at 7-5. Mothershed finished the game going two-for-two with two runs scored and five RBIs for the game.

In game two the Lions honored 10 seniors in a pre-game ceremony. The list of seniors is Drew Clark, Scott Fleming, Casey Jones, Nick McGregor, Trey Mitchell, Jared Mothershed, Dale Ricketts, Joel Sessions, Blake Stroth and manager Ben Stevenson.

“This year’s seniors have done a good job staying focused and keeping the younger guys focused,” Keehn said. “In Division II the middle-of-the-week games are extremely important, and we have done a really good job all season, and I give credit to the seniors for keeping the team’s focus were it needs to be.”

As for the game, Chad Boughner (8-1) scattered six runs on seven hits through six and one-third innings. Casey Jones then came in to shut out the tigers for the remainder of the game to give Boughner the 8-6 win.

The offense was led by Ricketts, who went three-for-four with an RBI, and LaMunyon, who had three RBIs, including a two-run homer in the fifth inning.

In game three Johnny Hornbuckle (7-3) got the win, allowing three runs with four strikeouts and was one out away for another complete game, but Jones came in for the save with the bases loaded, ending in a 7-3 win.

LaMunyon led the attack, going three-for-three with two RBIs and Josh Carpenter and Michael Schmidt pitched in with two hits and three RBIs combined. Stroth had the remaining two RBIs with a clutch two-out hit in the sixth.

The Lions will close out the regular season this weekend against rival Alabama-Huntsville for a three-game series with a double-header on Saturday beginning at 12 p.m. and a single game on Sunday starting at 1 p.m.