Baseball | 5/23/2016 7:23:00 PM
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TUCSON, Ariz. — The ACU Wildcats will close out the 2016 baseball season this week with a pair of non-conference games against the Arizona Wildcats.
ACU and Arizona will play the first of the two-game series Tuesday at 6 p.m. local time (8 p.m. Abilene time) with the second game scheduled for Wednesday at 6 p.m. local time (8 p.m. Abilene time). Both games will be carried live on KTLT 98.1 FM in Abilene.
ACU enters the season-ending series at 16-35 overall, while Arizona is 33-20 and in fourth place in the Pac-12 standings under first-year head coach Jay Johnson.
ACU will send starting pitchers
Kyle Carroll and
Garrett deMeyere to the mound in the two games. Carroll — a senior right-hander who will be playing in his final two games as a Wildcat this week — is 3-7 on the season with a 3.98 ERA. He's allowed just 42 runs (33 earned) in 74 2/3 innings of work and has 42 strikeouts against just 18 walks.
deMeyere has been a bit of a thorn in the side of the Arizona Wildcats in each of the last two seasons. He got the win two years ago in ACU's 6-5 win over Arizona on May 24, 2014, allowing just one run and six hits in 6 2/3 innings before turning the game over to the ACU bullpen to close out. And last year he was the big reason ACU was able to bounce back from a 9-0 loss to Arizona to beat the Wildcats, 2-1, on May 22, 2015, in the next-to-last game of the season. deMeyere scattered eight hits and struck out six batters over six strong innings before turning the game over to
Ladgie Zotyka, who allowed just one baserunner over the final three innings in a ACU's 2-1 victory.
ACU is hitting .244 as a team with nine home runs on the season and is led by junior infielder
Russell Crippen, who on Monday was voted the Southland Conference Utility Player of the Year. He leads the team in batting average (.309), doubles (15), home runs (3), RBI (19), slugging percentage (.457) and on-base percentage (.363) while starting 46 of ACU's 51 games.
Arizona enters the series hitting .283 on the season with 18 home runs and is led by Zach Gibbson (.378 with 36 RBI), Cody Ramer (.348 and 31 RBI) and Ryan Aguilar (.30 with a team-best six home runs and a team-high 38 RBI). Arizona's pitching staff has a 3.62 ERA on the season, but the Wildcats' starting pitchers for the series are yet to be announced.
