ABILENE – Slowly but surely, ACU is finding the offense it needs to match the way its pitching staff has performed for most of the 2015 season. Wednesday afternoon, the Wildcats put together one of their best efforts of the young season with a 6-3 win over Alabama A&M at Crutcher Scott Field.
For the fourth time in their last five games, the Wildcats pounded out at least 10 hits, and six ACU pitchers combined to strike out 12 Bulldogs while not walking one batter and scattering eight hits over nine innings. Conversely, an ACU offense that was hitting below .200 as a team just last weekend and had 164 strikeouts on the season going into Wednesday's game, collected 10 hits, only struck out four times, drew seven walks and raised the team batting average a few more ticks to .226.
ACU only scored in one inning Wednesday, but the six-run fifth inning was more than enough for the Wildcats to take home the win and improve to 3-14 on the season (2-7 at home). The Wildcats will be back in action this weekend when they host McNeese State in a three-game Southland Conference series at Crutcher Scott Field. The series opener is set for 6 p.m. Friday, followed by a 2 p.m. game Saturday and a 1 p.m. Sunday game.
Alabama A&M got a run in the second inning Wednesday on a balk by ACU starting pitcher
Joe Gawrieh, but that was all the offense the Bulldogs could muster until the sixth inning. But by that time the Wildcats had pushed six runs across in the fifth and taken a commanding 6-1 lead.
In the fifth inning, the Wildcats had three hits, drew three walks and had two hit by pitch as they sent 11 batters to the plate. With one out,
Aaron Draper and
Cody Huson drew walks and both advanced on a wild pitch.
Tyler Eager tied the game at 1-1 when he drove in Draper with a sacrifice fly to center field.
Alex Copeland was then hit and
Russell Crippen collected an infield single to load the bases with two outs.
Brayden Gomez then drew an RBI walk against Payden Kuhn, and that was all for the left-hander. Caleb Bowen came on in relief, and his first pitch hit
Garrett Hale, who plated Copeland with the run to make it 3-1.
Chris Altimont then delivered a two-run single and
Kyle Carroll an RBI single to push the lead to 6-1.
"That six-run fifth inning was big for us," ACU head coach
Britt Bonneau said. "We gook some quality at-bats in that inning. We were able to get some hits and some walks, and we had a couple of guys take one for the team. We're an offensive team right now that just has to keep grinding and battling. We're going to keep getting better offensively because we had such a good fall season at the plate. We'll find a rhythm at the plate, and hopefully we're starting to do that right now."
Brandon Lambright – who got the win for ACU to improve to 1-0 – gave up a solo home run in the sixth and
Bryce Welborn gave up a run in the seventh, but
Ladgie Zotyka got the Wildcats out of further trouble in the seventh with a strikeout and a flyout, and then he worked around a one-out double and a hit batter in the eighth to keep the Bulldogs off the scoreboard.
Kevin Sheets worked a 1-2-3 ninth inning to finish the game for his second save of the season.
Eager continued his impressive start to the season with two hits and an RBI, while Copeland collected two hits and Altimont had two hits and two RBI for the Wildcats.
