ABILENE – Abilene Christian's 8-3 baseball team returns to action this weekend at Crutcher Scott Field for a four-game series against former Lone Star Conference rival East Central University.
Friday's game begins at 6:05 p.m., followed by Saturday's 2:05 p.m. doubleheader. Sunday's 1:35 p.m. will be broadcast locally on KSLI 1280 AM by the Wildcats' venerable play-by-play man
Grant Boone.
The Wildcats are coming off a competitive series win over Southern Arkansas, in which all three games were decided by two runs or less. ACU won games one and two by scores of 4-3 and 11-9, but dropped the finale, 6-5, in 10 innings.
Led by
Duncan Blades (.467) and
Rodge Macy (.432), the Wildcats begin the week with some of the conference's most impressive offensive numbers. Through 11 games, ACU is No. 2 in batting (.322), but is first in hits with 1102 and runs scored with 99. The Wildcats have also swiped 15 bases through 17 attempts.
Freshman
Tyler Eager leads all conference sluggers with 17 hits, while Macy is tops with 17 RBI. The Eager/Macy combination also is tied for first in runs scored (16), and ranks first and second in total bases with 25 and 24, respectively.
Blades, who hit .429 last weekend vs. the Muleriders, is second in the LSC with 13 RBI, and is tied with Eager for the league lead in doubles with five.
Also having a solid outing against Southern Arkansas were Macy, who hit .400 with five runs and five RBI, and
Kyle Conwell, who batted .417 and scored a team-high six runs.
ACU's staff ERA, which began the year at 10.12 after a tough series vs. Arkansas Tech, is now just a tick under 6.00 at 5.88 thanks to strong showings the last two weeks vs. Colorado Christian and Southern Arkansas. Wildcat pitchers held the Cougars to 2.6 runs scored per game and a .270 batting average, and then posted a 4.50 ERA vs. the Muleriders led by starters
Clint Cooper and
Aaron Lambrix, and closer
Josh Stone.
Stone was utilized in all three games vs. Southern Arkansas and factored into each decision, winning game one and saving game two, before losing game three. He finished the series with five strikeouts through 5.1 innings pitched.
As for Lambrix, he produced a quality start in game one with 6.2 innings pitched, while Cooper went 5.0 innings in game three and left with a 5-2 lead. Jordan Herrera earned the victory in game two after striking out four in 1.2 innings of relief.
East Central comes to Abilene with an 8-6 record after losing 17-11 to Oklahoma Baptist on Tuesday and splitting a four-game series last weekend against Northeastern State.
The Tigers are hitting .327 through 14 games with 94 runs scored, 35 stolen bases and 39 extra-base hits. Five of their starters are batting .350 or better, led by Ethan Gold's .432 average, eight extra-base hits and 15 RBI.
Will Grimes (2-0, 1.06 ERA, 10K) and Eric Fredrick (2-0, 2.76, 21K) anchor ECU's starting pitching rotation.
