Baseball | 4/5/2015 9:33:00 PM
ABILENE – The ACU Wildcats are back in action Monday night when they welcome the highest-ranked team to ever play at Crutcher Scott Field when the No. 2-ranked TCU Horned Frogs come calling for the first of three non-conference baseball games between the teams.
First pitch Monday is scheduled for 6:30 p.m., and the game can be heard locally on 98.1 FM The Ticket and can be seen at
http://portal.stretchinternet.com/abilene/.
The Horned Frogs – ranked No. 2 in the country by Collegiate Baseball magazine and No. 1 by PerfectGame.com – are 23-6 on the season and 6-3 in the Big 12. The Frogs are the defending Big 12 champion and reached the College World Series in Omaha, Neb., in 2014.
The Wildcats got off to an 0-7 start, but are 8-13 since and have won each of their last two Southland Conference series, first against McNeese State two weeks ago and last weekend against Houston Baptist. ACU is 6-6 in conference play, which equals the number of wins the Wildcats put together in conference play in 2014. ACU head coach
Britt Bonneau is three wins away from No. 700 in his career and carries an all-time record of 697-380-1 in his 19th season at ACU into Monday night's game.
Bonneau will send senior right-hander
Thomas Altimont to the mound to face the Horned Frogs. Altimont is 1-5 on the season with a 5.06 ERA in 37 1/3 innings of work. He has two complete games on the season – a 2-0 loss to Nicholls on March 7 and a 3-0 win over McNeese State on March 22. He's struck out 32 batters and walked just 10 in seven appearances (six starts) for the Wildcats.
ACU is hitting a season-best .240 as a team and is led by senior first baseman
Tyler Eager, who is the only Wildcat hitting better than .300 at .303 on the season. He's got one home run and a team-high 19 RBI.
Russell Crippen (12 RBI),
Alex Copeland (10 RBI) and
Marcelle Carter (10 RBI) are the only other three Wildcats with double digits in RBI.
The Horned Frogs are hitting .281 as a team, led by Cody Jones, who is hitting .345 with two home runs and 16 RBI. Evan Skoug – hitting .287 on the season – is the Horned Frogs' leading power hitter with three home runs and 23 RBI on the season. Nolan Brown is hitting .333, while Connor Wanhanen is hitting .385, but has missed eight of the Horned Frogs' 29 games.
The Horned Frogs will send sophomore right-hander Brian Howard to the mound to face the Wildcats. This will be Howard's second start and eighth appearance, and he carries a 3-0 record and 2.55 ERA into Monday night's game. He's struck out 18 batters and walked just five in 17 2/3 innings of work.
The last time TCU was in Abilene to play at Crutcher Scott Field was April 22, 2014, when the Horned Frogs knocked off Texas Tech, 4-0, in a non-conference game between the Big 12 rivals. The last time TCU was in Abilene to take on ACU was Feb. 7, 1995, when four Horned Frog pitchers combined to no-hit the Wildcats, 10-1. The Horned Frogs lead the all-time series 17-1.
After the Monday night game against TCU, ACU will return to Southland Conference action this weekend with a three-game series at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (Friday-Sunday). The Islanders are 13-14 overall and 4-8 in conference play going into Tuesday's doubleheader at Texas-Pan American.
