Baseball to play midweek home-and-home series vs. UTA Mavericks

Baseball | 3/9/2015 3:25:00 PM

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ABILENE - After cold weather wiped out their first meeting in late February, the Abilene Christian and UT Arlington baseball teams appear to have good weather in store for this week's home-and-home series.

Tuesday's 6 p.m. game at ACU's Crutcher Scott Field will be played under partly cloudy skies with a high of 63 degrees, while Wednesday's game-time temperature at UTA's Clay Gould Ballpark is predicted to be 68 degrees.

Both games will be broadcast by the 'Voice of the Wildcats' Grant Boone on 98.1 FM - The Ticket. ACUSports.com and UTAMavs.com also will have links on their sites for live video and statistics.

The Wildcats (1-9) are coming off a hard-fought Southland Conference series loss to Nicholls, which entered last-weekend with the eighth-lowest earned-run average among all NCAA DI schools (1.83). 

ACU won the first-game, 3-2, behind Garrett deMeyere's six strikeouts through 6.1 innings pitched. He was followed to the mound by the terrific bullpen arms of Nick Palacios, Ladgie Zotyka and Kevin Sheets, who earned his first save of 2015 with a 1-2-3 ninth inning.

The Wildcats' scored all three of their runs in the sixth thanks to an error by the Nicholls shortstop followed by run-scoring hits by Tyler Eager and Aaron Copeland to overcome an early 1-0 deficit. Nicholls then tacked on a second run in the seventh on a sacrifice hit.

Unfortunately, ACU's offense stalled a bit during Saturday's doubleheader sweep in which they lost by very close scores of 5-4 and 2-0. 

Nicholls jumped out to a 3-0 lead in game one only to see the Wildcats counter in their half of the third on a RBI single by Marcell Carter and a two-run double by Eager. The Colonels, however, would take the lead for good in the fifth on Alex Shermer's RBI double, and then plated the eventual game-winning in the sixth on a balk by Wildcat reliever Joe Gawrieh.

In the nightcap, the Wildcats were three-hit by Justin Simbaldi, who struck out eight in his complete-game effort.

ACU's Thomas Altimont was nearly as strong, scattering seven hits and one walk with six strikeouts over 9.0 innings. 

Nicholls scored both its runs through the first two innings on a RBI groundout and a wild pitch, but never threatened again as Altimont allowed just five more baserunners over the final 6.0 innings.

Of the nine runs scored last weekend by Nicholls, only three were earned as the Wildcats finished with a 1.00 ERA. Nicholls, however, posted a 2.08 ERA as both teams combined to strikeout 51 batters.

UTA comes into this week at 5-6 and 2-1 vs. the Sun Belt Conference after winning last weekend's home series vs. Arkansas State. The Mavericks are 1-2 in games vs. Southland teams this spring having lost earlier this season to Houston Baptist, 2-1, and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, 12-9. But they whipped SFA in Nacogdoches to start the year, 18-9.

UTA is hitting .265 as a team with 53 runs scored, while their pitching staff has an ERA of 4.83 with 59 strikeouts.