Baseball | 5/23/2015 1:20:00 AM
Box Score TUCSON, Ariz. – All season, the ACU Wildcats have played some of their best baseball against teams from Power 5 conferences, but had nothing to show for it except a string of close losses.
That came to a screeching halt Friday night as
Garrett deMeyere and reliever
Ladgie Zotyka combined to keep Arizona's offense under wraps in a 2-1 ACU victory over the traditional Pac-12 Conference power at Hi Corbett Field. ACU's best win of the season comes on the heels of perhaps its worst loss, a 9-0 loss Thursday night that saw the Wildcats go through the motions.
In fact, ACU's turnaround was so complete and stunning that longtime Arizona head coach Andy Lopez congratulated ACU head coach
Britt Bonneau immediately after the game on ACU's resilience in coming back from Thursday night's loss to win Friday's game.
The win also ended ACU's 2015 frustrations against Power 5 teams as the Wildcats were 0-7 against TCU (Big 12), Texas Tech (Big 12), Texas A&M (SEC) and Arizona State (Pac-12) with four of those losses coming by a single run. ACU, in fact, entered Friday night's game 5-13 on the season in one-run games. But ACU turned that around Friday with dominant pitching, solid defensive work and just enough offense to knock off a team that has won four College World Series championships, the last coming in 2012.
"When you make the right pitches and you win those pitches, it certainly makes the game easier," Bonneau said. "We were able to push across two runs early in the game and then rode our pitchers the rest of the way."
deMeyere — who improved to 4-5 on the season and won his second start against Arizona in two seasons — got ahead of 21 of 25 batters he faced with first-pitch strikes, which was a key in his success. deMeyere, who mixed in a nasty off-speed pitch with a fastball — struck out six Arizona batters, didn't allow a walk and only gave up one run, a two-out single in the sixth inning to draw Arizona to within 2-1.
But that was all Arizona would get because Zotyka came into the game in the seventh and went the final three innings, allowing just one hit, only two baserunners and nothing else while striking out two batters to earn his third save of the season.
"I was able to command my fastball up and down and side to side in the strike zone, and that was huge," deMeyere said. "But it was my off-speed that benefited me (Friday). I was able to keep those guys off balance and keep them guessing."
ACU jumped on top with two runs in the second inning against Arizona starting pitcher Cody Hamlin, who last week pitched 8 1/3 scoreless innings against No. 4 UCLA in a 1-0 Bruins' victory in 10 innings.
Russell Crippen singled to lead off the second inning, stole second and scored on a
Colton Hall single to center field, putting ACU up 1-0.
Mason Spracklen then hit a shot to third baseman Bobby Dalbec, who threw wildly to second base, allowing Spracklen to reach first base and Hall to go to third base.
Brayden Gomez then grounded out hard to first base, driving in Hall with the second run of the inning, and ACU's final run of the game.
ACU threatened in the third inning with runners at second and third with one out, but couldn't score. ACU got a runner to second in the seventh and ninth innings, but couldn't push a run across the plate. It didn't matter, though, because the Wildcats' defense was solid with great plays by
Taylor Waters in left field (running catch that ended the fifth and kept two runs from scoring), a great play by shortstop
Kyle Carroll deep in the hole to get Riley Moor leading off the eighth inning, and a game-ending stop and throw across the diamond from
Aaron Draper at third base.
"We got the lead early, which was huge, and then we made some great defensive plays behind Garrett and Ladgie, and that helped the lead stand up," Bonneau said. "Once we got the lead, our pitchers kept pounding the zone and when you can do that and play solid defense, you can get a win against a good team. This was a great bounce back win for our team."
ACU (16-38) will close out the 2015 season Saturday at 2 p.m. MT (4 p.m. Abilene time) against the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors (21-29) at Hi Corbett Field.
