HEAD COACH BRITT BONNEAU INTERVIEW WITH GRANT BOONE
ABILENE – With McMurry University now a member of NCAA Division II and a regional foe as part of the Heartland Conference, the Abilene Christian baseball team will briefly rekindle its rivalry with the War Hawks Sunday at 3 p.m. for a single nine-inning game at Walt Driggers Field.
ACU leads the all-time series 6-0 with all the previous meetings taking place between 1996-2001. The Wildcats swept a pair of home-and-home game series in 1996 and 1997, won again, 12-11, in 2000, and 10-2 in 2001. ACU's victory over the War Hawks in 2000 was the 150th of Wildcat head coach
Britt Bonneau's young career. He now has 646 and an all-time winning percentage of .678 through 951 contests.
The Wildcats begin the week at 4-4 after splitting a four-game series vs. East Central last weekend at Crutcher Scott Field. ACU won games one and three by scores of 14-2 and 2-1, but lost games two and four by margins of 3-0 and 10-5.
Rodge Macy led all Wildcat hitters vs. the Tigers with a .444 batting average, going 4 for 9 with two runs, four RBI and five walks.
Seth Spivey also did well at the plate, batting .333 with six runs, three RBI and two doubles.
Spivey's weekend kept his season average above .400 (.409) and pushed his on-base percentage to a team-best .611. The junior transfer from Angelina College has nine hits in 22 at-bats to go along with six walks and seven hits by pitch this year.
Senior
Travis Schuetze, however, leads the Wildcats with a .455 batting average (10-for-22) and a .591 slugging percentage that includes three doubles.
On the mound,
Jordon Herrera improved to 2-0 after winning the series opener vs. ECU, allowing just two runs on five hits through 6.0 innings with six strikeouts. He has struck out 13 this season in as many innings pitched and is holding opposing hitters to a .250 batting average.
Carter Hahn won game three of the ECU series – his first as a Wildcat – after striking out six through 6.0 innings.
Aaron Lambrix then came on in the seventh and walked one, struck out one to earn his first save of the year.
McMurry enters the weekend 4-3 and will first play host to Heartland rival St. Edward's today and Saturday before welcoming ACU. The War Hawks began their year with a three-game sweep of Oklahoma Panhandle, but then lost two of three to UT-Permian Basin and again this past Tuesday to No. 10 Angelo State, 7-2.
A.J. Dupre and Eric Pruess are McMurry's leading hitters with .318 and .304 averages, respectively, while hurler Spencer Smith owns a 0.00 ERA and 1-0 record through two starts and 13.1 innings pitched. Smith and Chase Moreland lead their club with 10 strikeouts.
