WARRENSBURG, Mo. -- The ACU Wildcats have built their season on strong pitching and defense and timely hitting, and all three of those phases were on display Thursday as the nation's seventh-ranked team rolled to a win in the first game of the NCAA Division II South Central Region Tournament.
Cameron Aspaas threw 6 2/3 strong innings and
Aaron Oliver had three hits and drove in four runs as the Wildcats whipped St. Mary's, 10-2, at Crane Stadium.
The win pushes the Wildcats to 47-13 as they tied the school record for wins in a season (2007 team). ACU will play Incarnate Word at 7 p.m. Friday. St. Mary's, meanwhile, falls to 39-18, and will play at noon Friday in an elimination game against No. 6 seed Nebraska-Omaha.
The Wildcats fell behind 1-0 on a solo home run in the third inning before they were able to push across six runs in the third inning. Four of those runs were unearned as two St. Mary's errors proved costly.
Oliver tripled in
Cameron Bankston with the Wildcats' first run to tie the game at 1-1 before
Chris Hall's sacrifice fly drove in Oliver to make it a 2-1 game. Will Calhoun then reached on a double before scoring on an error by Jonathan Cisneros that allowed
Travis Latz to score.
Willie Uechi then tripled in Latz to make it 4-1 before Bret Bochsler capped the scoring with his ninth home run of the season, a two-run bomb to right field that made it 6-1.
"We were able to take advantage of some of their miscues defensively and then we were able to get some big hits there in the third inning," ACU head coach
Britt Bonneau said. "That definitely helped and got us some separation in the third inning. Then from there we were able to put together some runs here and there and then came up with a big home run to put it away."
Those six runs were more than enough for Aspaas and the rest of the ACU pitching staff, which shut down a potent St. Mary's lineup. Four Wildcat pitchers combined to throw just 126 pitches, strike out eight batters and not allow a walk.
Aspaas went 6 2/3 innings and struck out seven Rattlers before giving way to
Ryan McCabe with runners at first and second and two outs in the seventh. McCabe needed just two pitches to get out of the inning as he coaxed an inning-ending popup out of James Hipp to send the game to the bottom of the seventh with the Wildcats leading 8-2.
Josh Crockett needed just seven pitches to mow through the Rattlers in the eighth, and after Oliver's two-run home run to right field in the bottom of the eighth made it a 10-2 game, closer
Brad Rutherford used just 11 pitches to finish it in the ninth.
"To win in any regional you have to have good pitching, and we got a good start out of Cameron Aspass," Bonneau said. "He was able to give us 6 2/3 innings before having to use our bullpen. We turned it over to McCabe, Crockett and Rutherford and they did what they've done for us all season."
