ABILENE – Another day, another big win for an ACU baseball team that is suddenly putting together a nice early season run of success.
Once again it took extra innings for the Wildcats to knock off Creighton as they topped the Bluejays, 8-7, in dramatic fashion, similar to Friday night's heroics in a 3-2 extra-innings victory.
The win at Crutcher Scott Field pushes the Wildcats' winning streak to six straight after an 0-4 start to the season. It's ACU's longest winning streak as an NCAA Division I program and its longest since it won seven straight from Feb. 5-19, 2012, while still a member of the NCAA Division II Lone Star Conference.
Saturday afternoon's game played out exactly as did Friday night's with the Wildcats giving up the two game-tying runs in the top of the ninth inning and then winning it dramatic fashion in the bottom of the 10
th. Friday night it was a sacrifice fly off the bat of
Russell Crippen that drove in
Derek Scott with the game-winning run, and Saturday it was a double down the left field line that drove in
Mark Pearson from first base with the game-winner.
KEY INNING
ACU led 7-3 after breaking a 3-3 tie with four runs in the bottom of the seventh. Freshman
Anthony Dominguez had an RBI single and junior designated hitter drove in one of his two runs with a sacrifice fly. But Creighton scratched out two runs in the top of the eighth to cut the ACU lead to 7-5 before getting two more in the top of the ninth.
The hero in the ninth was Bryce Only, who drove in Jason Allberry with a two-out RB single. Only had a two-out, two-run home run Friday night to tie the game at 2-2 in the ninth inning, sending it to extra innings.
In the top of the 1oth, the Bluejays had runners at first and second with one out when freshman
Ryan Kotulek came on in relief of
Zach Kornely. Kotulek – the freshman out of Shallowater – got a fly ball out and a strikeout to end the threat, bringing the Wildcats to the plate in a tie game.
It didn't last long.
With one out,
Mark Pearson reached on an infield hit and one-out later, he scored from first when Farkas drilled a 1-1 pitch down the left field line to plate Pearson with the game-winning run. Allberry juggled the ball momentarily in the left field corner, but had no play on Pearson, who was flying around the bases on the crack of the bat.
ON THE MOUND
Case Rolen got the start for the Wildcats and gave way to
Keaton Brewer after 3 1/3 innings of work. Brewer allowed three runs on five hits and struck out seven batters in 4 1/3 innings of work. With regular closer
Brandon Lambright unavailable to the Wildcats because he threw 62 pitches Friday night, Kornely came on and went 1 2/3 innings before giving way to Kotulek.
The freshman righthander went 2/3 of an inning, but that was enough to pick up his first collegiate victory. Those four ACU pitchers combined to strike out 12 Creighton batters to give the ACU pitching staff 87 strikeouts in 10 games.
AT THE PLATE
One day after driving in all three runs for the Wildcats in the 3-2 win over Creighton, Crippen was 3 for 5 with one run scored, raising his season average to .395.
Koby Claborn also had three hits in the game as he improve to .438 on the season, and
Derek Scott continued his torrid pace as he had two more hits to push his average to .390.
Trevino has been the Wildcats' lynchpin on offense in the early going, and Saturday was no exception as he had one hit and drove in two runs to give him 14 RBI on the season. Crippen led last season's team with 19 RBI in 51 games played.
NOTABLE
• Before Friday, Wildcats' last walk-off win came on March 29, 2016, when
Willie Harris scored on a one-out squeeze bunt by
Aaron Draper in the bottom of the ninth inning to give ACU a 3-2 win over Dallas Baptist. Now they have back-to-back walk-off wins.
• Trevino has a hit in all 10 ACU games, and Scott has hit in seven straight games.
• Last season as a freshman, Scott had 15 hits in 103 at-bats (39 games) to finish with a .146 batting average. Through 10 games this season, he's already collected 16 hits in just 41 at-bats (.390).
• The Wildcats have clinched the series against Creighton (Big East Conference and 1991 participant in the College World Series), which gives the Wildcats back-to-back series wins over NCAA Division I opponents for the first time in program history.
NEXT SERIES
The Wildcats and Bluejays will wrap up the series at noon (12 p.m.) Sunday at Crutcher Scott Field. The game will be broadcast on 98.1 FM.
