ABILENE -- The 10th-ranked ACU Wildcats swept a Lone Star Conference baseball doubleheader from Tarleton State on Saturday, extending the program's longest winning streak since 2005 to 15 games.
The Wildcats won a nail-biter in the first game, 4-3, and then used a
Mike Elkerson three-run home run and a three-hit, complete-game shutout by pitcher
Trey Watten to take the nightcap, 8-0, at Crutcher Scott Field. The Wildcats are now 40-13 overall and 36-7 in the LSC, while the Texans are 24-31 overall and 18-25 in the LSC. ACU has now won 40 games 11 times in program history with 10 of those coming in head coach
Britt Bonneau's 12-year tenure (1997-present).
ACU and Tarleton State will close out the regular season Sunday with a single game at 2 p.m. A Wildcat win in that game woould give Bonneau 495 career victories, including 197 in LSC play.
Watten (9-3) was dominant in the nightcap as he rolled through the Texans, striking out seven batters and not allowing a walk. Only one Texan baserunner advanced to third base in the game, and that was Heath Herron, who led off the game with a single. After that single, however, Watten set down 13 straight Texans to keep the game scoreless through four innings.
Tarleton State starter Garrett Woods (0-3) pitched effectively, limiting the Wildcats to just one hit through four innings, but he ran out of steam in the fifth when he was tagged for five runs on five hits. ACU got the only run it would need when
Cameron Bankston doubled with one out in the fifth and then scored on a
Thomas Bumpass single.
Matt Spotanski followed with a bloop double, and after a strikeout, Elkerson hammered the first pitch he saw from Woods over the wall in left field for a three-run home run and 4-0 ACU lead.
Willie Uechi added an RBI single later in the inning, and that was it for Woods. After finishing the doubleheader 4 for 9 with four RBI, Elkerson is now ACU's single-season leader in hits (99), home runs (20), RBI (82) and total bases (185), and he's tied Joel Wells as the all-time home run leader (26).
Elkerson and the red-hot
Allen Smith added RBI doubles in the sixth to stretch the lead against the Texans, who have lost nine straight games to the Wildcats.
In the opener, it was Watten'ss bat that gave the Wildcats the one-run victory, pushing them to 4-6 on the season in one-run games. ACU left 11 runners on base in the first game, but rallied to tie the game at 2-2 in the sixth and 3-3 in the seventh before getting the winning run in the eighth.
With two outs,
J.J. Pacheco doubled to left and then scored the game-winning run on a Watten single to left. That was enough cushion for relief pitcher
Chris Wiman, who pitched two innings of no-hit baseball to pick up the win and improve to 11-2 on the season.
Wiman's 11 wins tie him with Corey Tidwell (2002), Grant Gregg (2001) and Mark Ferry (1996) for the most wins in ACU single-season history. Wiman now has 30 career victories, which leave him just two wins shy of tying the LSC and ACU career mark of 32 set earlier this month by his current teammate,
Ben Maynard. Maynard will try to get his 33rd career win as the likely starting pitcher in Sunday's regular-season finale.
