ABILENE – For one night at least, everything went according to plan for the ACU Wildcats.
In his final start at Crutcher Scott Field, senior righthander
Garrett deMeyere was brilliant, the Wildcats played flawlessly behind him and the offense finally put away an opponent when presented the opportunity.
In short, it was a perfect night at Crutcher Scott Field as the Wildcats opened their final four-game homestand of the season with a 6-1 win over New Orleans in a Southland Conference contest.
The win pushes the Wildcats to 14-28 overall and 6-16 in the league, while the Privateers fall to 26-18 and 10-12. The teams will be back in action Saturday at 6 p.m. with the series finale set for 1 p.m. Sunday. ACU will play its final home game of the 2016 season Tuesday night when it hosts nationally ranked Texas Tech.
deMeyere's final career start at Crutcher Scott Field was one of his best as he cruised the top hitting team in the league, holding the Privateers to just seven hits and one run, snapping the Wildcats' seven-game losing streak. deMeyere – who improved to 3-7 on the season – struck out three Privateers and didn't give up a walk as he needed just 95 pitches to finish off the complete-game victory.
"I had all three pitches working and was able to keep them off-balance with first-pitch off-speed pitches," deMeyere said.
ACU scored a run in the bottom of the first on a safety squeeze by
Derek Scott before the Privateers tied the game with a run in the third inning. But the Wildcats scored single runs in the fourth and fifth innings to take a 3-1 lead into the late innings, which was more than enough for deMeyere.
In the fourth,
Mark Pearson singled and stole second with two outs before scoring on a single to right field by
Stetson Meek. In the fifth,
Russell Crippen reached on an error by Dakota Dean and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt by
Chris Altimont. Crippen then scored on a single by
Heath Beasley, pushing the ACU lead to 3-1.
ACU got another run in the seventh on another RBI single by Beasley, and then tacked on two more runs in the bottom of the eighth on a two-base throwing error by UNO shortstop Aaron Palmer that allowed
Aaron Draper and pinch-runner
Gunny Evans to score, pushing the lead to 6-1.
Beasley was 3 for 4 with two RBI in the game, while Crippen – the team's leading hitter – was 1 for 4 with two runs scored.
