NEW ORLEANS -- ACU starting pitcher
Thomas Altimont threw seven shutout innings Saturday afternoon to lead the Wildcats to a 7-3 win over New Orleans in Southland Conference action at Maestri Field.
The win gives ACU back-to-back wins for the first time this season and pushes the Wildcats to 12-31 on the season and 10-13 in the Southland Conference. The Privateers, meanwhile, fall to 14-31 and 3-20. The Wildcats won just six conference games last season, its first back in the Southland Conference since 1973.
ACU now has a chance to sweep its first Southland Conference series since it returned to the league when the Wildcats and Privateers close the series Sunday at 1 p.m.
Altimont evened his record in conference play at 3-3 with the win and lowered his ERA against Southland Conference opponents to 1.71 with his sixth quality start, all of them coming in conference play. In 47 1/3 innings of work in seven conference starts, Altimont has struck out 39 batters and given up just 35 hits and opponents are hitting just .207 against him.
Altimont -- 3-7 overall with a 3.57 ERA on the season -- needed just 90 pitches to get through seven innings. He allowed just five hits and didn't walk a batter while striking out nine Privateers in seven scoreless innings. Altimont stranded a pair of Privateers on base in the third inning, and then proceeded to retire 10 straight batters in the game's middle innings.
ACU took advantage of three more UNO errors in Saturday's game to score three unearned runs, all of those coming in the third inning, and all scoring with two outs. Two runs scored on a throwing error on a ball hit by
Heath Beasley, and then Beasley scored on an RBI single by freshman
Marcelle Carter.
The Wildcats tacked on single runs in the fifth and sixth on solo home run by Carroll in the fifth and an RBI single by
Aaron Draper in the sixth inning. The Wildcats scored two more runs in the seventh when
Tyler Eager and Carter each scored on wild pitches to make it 7-0.
New Orleans got three runs late against ACU's bullpen before
Ladgie Zotyka came into the game with two outs and two on in the bottom of the ninth and got a fly ball out to end the game.
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