ABILENE – In a close game, sometimes the difference between winning and losing is razor thin. It's the difference in coming up with a key hit or popping out. It's the difference between getting a key strikeout or walking a batter. Or the difference between making a key defensive play and not making one.
For the ACU Wildcats, the latter was true Sunday afternoon as they dropped the third game of a season-opening series to Nevada, 3-2, at Crutcher Scott Field, The loss drops the Wildcats to 0-3 for the first time under head coach
Britt Bonneau, who is beginning his 19th season at the helm.
The Wildcats will be back in action this weekend when they head to south Texas to take on Texas-Pan America is a three-game series in Edinburg beginning Friday.
Sunday's series finale turned on three defensive plays, two in the fourth inning and one in the eighth inning.
Nevada led 1-0 in the fourth inning against ACU starting pitcher
Garrett deMeyere and had two outs and no runners on base after deMeyere picked off a baserunner when things fell apart. Grant Fennell reached on a single to right field and went to second on an error by
Colton Hall, who tried to come up throwing and get Fennell at first base. Instead, the ball skipped past Hall, allowing Fennell to scoot to second base.
The next batter, Cal Stevenson, hit a 2-2 pitch out to second baseman
Aaron Draper for what appeared would be the final out of the inning. But Draper couldn't find the handle on the ball and all hands were safe on the bases. Leadoff hitter Kyle Hunt then drilled a 2-2 pitch down the left field line that drove in Fennell and Stevenson to make it 3-0. deMeyere would face one more batter before giving way to
Kevin Sheets, and Sheets would get the Wildcats out of the inning without any further damage.
And just like in Saturday's 9-6 loss to Nevada, ACU's bullpen was excellent in relief. Sheets and
Ladgie Zotyka combined to throw 5 1/3 innings of scoreless baseball, allowing just three hits and one walk while striking out four Nevada hitters. That work allowed the Wildcats to chip away at the Wolfpack lead with a run in the sixth and a run in the eighth to make it a 3-2 game.
In the sixth,
Tyler Eager led off with a single and went to second when
Russell Crippen grounded out to third base. Eager then scored when he stole third and came home on an errant throw by Nevada catcher Jordan Devencenzi, cutting the Nevada lead to 3-1.
In the eighth, Eager delivered a two-out single to centerfield and then scored when Crippen ripped a shot down the left field line for a run-scoring double to make it a 3-2 game. With Crippen standing at second as the tying run, freshman
Brayden Gomez dug in to face relief pitcher Trenton Brooks, who played the other 8 2/3 innings of the game in right field.
Gomez lined a 1-1 pitch down the third base line that was gloved by third baseman Justin Bridgman, who had just entered the game as a defensive replacement. Bridgman went to a knee, back-handed the ball spun around, came up throwing and got Gomez by a half-step at first for the final out of the inning, preserving the 3-2 lead.
In the bottom of the ninth, ACU got singles from
Alex Copeland and Hall to put the tying run at second base with two outs, but Adam Whitt got his second save of the series by working around the two singles by striking out the side, including Draper to end the game.
"Our pitchers really battled (Sunday)," Bonneau said. "We gave them a couple of runs in the fourth inning that we shouldn't have given them. Our defense should be picking up our pitchers in those situations, and we didn't do that."
deMeyere threw 109 pitches in just 3 2/3 innings and was tagged with the loss to fall to 0-1. But he and Sheets and Zotyka were the bright spots for the Wildcats, who lost the series, but actually outscored Nevada 8-3 over the last 14 innings of the series.
"We played a lot better baseball from the fifth inning (Saturday) through (Sunday)," Bonneau said. "Our hitters battled at the plate, and our pitchers were great. We need to carry that same type of play with us moving forward this season."
