ABILENE – Nothing has come easy in the early going of the 2015 baseball season for the ACU Wildcats. Perhaps that's what made Friday night's 3-2 win over Nicholls in the Southland Conference-opener for both teams so sweet.
The Wildcats entered the game 0-7 on the season, but saw their pitching staff put together another solid outing and their offense throw in some timely hits in the sixth inning to secure their first win of the season. The Wildcats are now 1-7 overall and 1-0 in the Southland, while Nicholls falls to 7-5-1 and 0-1.
The teams will close out their three-game series Saturday with a 2 p.m. doubleheader at Crutcher Scott Field. The teams moved Sunday's game to Saturday because of the threat of rain in the area on Sunday.
Friday night's game promised to be a pitcher's duel, and it lived up to the billing.
Nicholls starter Marc Frazier entered the game with a 3.60 ERA and ACU starter
Garrett deMeyere carried a 2.35 ERA into the game, and both pitched to those numbers. Frazier retired the first 14 Wildcats he faced in going 5 1/3 innings of four-hit baseball. deMeyere matched him pitch-for-pitch, allowing just three hits and two unearned runs while striking out six Colonels in 6 1/3 innings.
deMeyere only walked two batters and Frazier one as the game rocked along at a quick pace. Nicholls scored an unearned run in the first when Justin Holt reached on an error by ACU first baseman
Russell Crippen on the game's first pitch, and then came around to score on an RBI fielder's choice by Frazier when ACU right fielder
Colton Hall dropped a line drive right at him. However, he was able to get Gavin Wehby at second base for the force out to limit the Colonels' offensive damage.
deMeyere then settled into a good groove, retiring the next nine men he faced and 11 of the next 12 before he ran into trouble in the fifth. He walked David Zorn to lead off the inning, and then he moved to second on a sacrifice bunt by Tanner Vandevere. Joey Morales then singled through the hole into left field and Zorn tore around third, headed for the plate. But ACU freshman
Marcelle Carter came up firing and threw Zorn out at the plate by 10 feet to keep the game at 1-0. deMeyere struck out the next man he faced (Holt) to end the inning.
In the bottom of the sixth, the Wildcat offense finally got untracked against Frazier, who is part of a Nicholls pitching staff that entered the game with a 1.53 ERA, sixth-best in the nation.
Jeff Clarke led off with a single and went to second on a sacrifice bunt by
Kyle Carroll. After a wild pitch moved Clarke to third,
Aaron Draper walked to give ACU runners at the corners with one out. Carter then grounded a ball to Morales at shortstop, but he bobbled the ball and all runners were safe, including Clarke, who tied the game at 1-1.
Senior center fielder
Tyler Eager then followed with an RBI single to center to score Draper and give the Wildcats a 2-1 lead. Junior catcher
Alex Copeland then singled into left field and Carter scored to make it a 3-1 game.
deMeyere, though, immediately ran into trouble in the seventh when he walked Kyle Reese to lead off the inning. Carroll then committed an error when he tried to backhand a ball hit by Justin Smith, and that allowed Reese to get to third. Zorn then squeezed in a run to make it 3-2 and that brought out ACU head coach
Britt Bonneau to make a pitching change.
He brought in
Nick Palacios, who retired the only two men he faced to end the seventh with ACU still leading 3-2.
Ladgie Zotyka then worked around a two-walk to get Christian Correa to line out to left field to end the eighth with the Wildcats still leading by one run.
In the ninth,
Kevin Sheets came on and immediately gave up an infield single to Reese. Darius Knight then came on to pinch hit, but struck out looking after he fouled off two bunt attempts and took a 1-2 pitch down the middle for the first out. Zorn then grounded into a 5-4-3 game-ending double play to secure the Wildcats' first win of the season.
"Our guys kept battling, just like they've done each game this season," Bonneau said. "We knew that deMeyere needed to match what Frazier did, and he was able to do that and give us a chance to win. We've had some things not go our way this year, as evidenced by our record. But I look back at that game last Tuesday (a 6-5, 16-inning loss at No. 5 Texas Tech), and we just kept playing no matter what happened. I thought we did a good job of doing that (Friday).
"We needed Garrett to give us six or seven innings because when we're able to get that out of our starters, it gives us the chance to run Nick, Ladgie and Sheets out there with a chance to win a game," Bonneau said. "And that was a huge sixth inning for our confidence. That was our third time around against him (Frazier) and we finally figured him out a little bit. "
