HAMMOND, La. -
Colton Hall and
Marcelle Carter each ripped three hits and helped ignite a pair of comebacks in leading Abilene Christian baseball to a 9-2 road victory over Southeastern Louisiana Saturday at Alumni Field to even their Southland Conference series at a game apiece.
The rubber game of the series is Sunday at 1 p.m.
Game two began as a pitchers dual between ACU's
Aaron Mason and Southeastern's Jake Johnson. Mason allowed just one run over 5.2 innings before turning it over to a bullpen that surrendered just two more hits the rest of the way.
Johnson, meanwhile, tossed 107 pitches and struck out six over 6.2 innings, but stayed in long enough to give up Carter's solo shot that gave ACU a short-lived 2-1 lead to begin the seventh.
After Mason left the game with two outs in the sixth,
Nick Palacios struck out Ryan Byers to squash a mild threat with two runners on base.
Nate Cole then punched out the first two batters he faced to begin the seventh. But things started to slip a little for him as an error by shortstop
Kyle Carroll led to a single and two walks, the second of which tied the game at 2-2.
With the bases still loaded,
Ladgie Zotyka was called in from the bullpen and struck out clean-up batter Kevin Carr on a 1-2 pitch. He then pitched a 1-2-3 eighth and was the pitcher of record when the Wildcats teed off against Lion relievers Kade Granier and Mason Klotz.
Granier started the ninth with a strikeout of Carter but he walked
Brayden Gomez and gave up back-to-back base hits by
Russell Crippen and
Heath Beasley, whose double broke the 2-2 tie.
Crippen and Beasley each finished the game with two hits.
Aaron Draper added an RBI single off Klotz and Hall ripped a two-run double down the right-field line to push ACU's lead out to 7-2.
Tyler Eager would score on a fielding error by the catcher, and Hall came home on
Alex Copeland's fly ball to right.
Prior to the excitement of the latter innings, Southeastern Louisiana struck first in the third inning on a RBI double by leadoff man Jacob Seward. ACU would tie the score at 1-1 in the fifth after Johnson encountered a bit of wildness, hitting two batters and uncorking a wild pitch that allowed Carter to score.
The score remain tied until Carter launched his first home run of the season two innings later.
