Baseball | 3/30/2015 5:44:00 PM
DALLAS – The ACU Wildcats continue their longest road stretch of the season Tuesday night when they take on the 13th-ranked Patriots of Dallas Baptist in a non-conference game at at Horner Ballpark.
First pitch from the DBU campus is set for 6:30 p.m., and the game can be heard on 98.1 FM The Ticket with "The Voice of the Wildcats,"
Grant Boone, calling the action.
ACU enters the game at 6-18 overall after Sunday's 5-4 win over Lamar in the final game of a three-game non-conference series against Southland Conference foe Lamar. The two teams had the same open date this season (and will again in 2016) and elected to play a three-game non-conference series against each other last weekend. Next year on the same open date weekend, Lamar will be in Abilene to take on the Wildcats.
The Wildcats dropped the first two games of the series, 6-1 and 8-4, but rallied behind a makeshift pitching staff to get the win Sunday. With scheduled starting pitcher
Thomas Altimont – along with reliever
Nate Cole and designated hitter
Jeff Clarke – rocked by food poisoning, the Wildcats turned to normal closer
Kevin Sheets to start the game against Lamar on Sunday.
Sheets went four innings – giving up five hits and two earned runs – before he, too, left with food poisoning. He gave way to
Ladgie Zotyka, who went three innings and got the win before
Nick Palacios mopped up the final two innings for his first save.
Altimont (1-4, 4.36 ERA) is now scheduled to start Tuesday's game against Dallas Baptist, and, depending on what head coach
Britt Bonneau does with his rotation this weekend at Houston Baptist, could start Altimont again next Tuesday night at home against TCU, which is ranked No. 5 in the latest Baseball America poll, which was released Monday.
The Wildcats continue to be led offensively by senior first baseman
Tyler Eager, who is now hitting .323 with 15 RBI on the season, hitting in the No. 3 spot in the lineup. Eager is fifth in the Southland in doubles with nine, and he's just outside the top 10 in the league in average and hits. No other Wildcat, however, is hitting better than
Russell Crippen's .258 batting average with ACU carrying a team batting average of .239 into Tuesday's game.
DBU – which is ranked 13th in the country this week by Baseball America – enters Tuesday's game coming off a three-game series sweep of Illinois State in Missouri Valley Conference action. The Patriots currently have the nation's longest home winning streak at 14 games, and at 22-3 overall and 5-1 in the MVC, they are off to the best start through 25 games in the program's NCAA Division I history (dating back to 2004).
The Patriots are led offensively by Tagg Duce, who had six RBI last Tuesday in DBU's 11-6 win over the Wildcats in Abilene. Duce is hitting .369 with two home runs and 20 RBI, while Justin Wall is at .349 with three home runs and 21 RBI and Camden Duzenack is hitting .343 with three home runs and 28 RBI. Six DBU starters are hitting at least .311 on the season, and the Patriots are hitting .302 with 20 home runs as a team.
DBU is scheduled to start Gavin Fritz on the mound. Fritz got the start last Tuesday against ACU and went three innings before being lifted from the contest. He is 2-0 on the year and hasn't allowed a run in nine innings of work.
After the game against DBU, ACU will hit the road to Houston to take on Houston Baptist in a three-game Southland Conference series. Because of the Easter weekend, the series will be played Thursday (2 p.m.), Friday (2 p.m.) and Saturday (2 p.m.).
