ABILENE – In a scenario that's becoming highly entertaining for ACU baseball fans and, at the same time, heart-stopping for the coaching staff, the Wildcats once again rallied in the late innings Sunday afternoon to topple Creighton, completing a three-game sweep of the Bluejays at Crutcher Scott Field.
Friday night and Saturday afternoon, the Wildcats gave up a late two-run leads only to win 10 innings each time. Sunday afternoon in the series finale, ACU rallied from a 3-2 deficit by scoring two runs in the bottom of the eighth to knock off Creighton, 4-3, running its winning streak to seven straight games.
All three of ACU's wins in the series came in their last at-bat as it scored one run in the bottom of the 10
th in Friday night's 3-2 win and one in the bottom of the 10
th in Saturday afternoon's 8-7 victory. The Wildcats fell behind 3-2 after giving up single runs in the top of the seventh and innings, but regained the lead 4-3 with two runs in the bottom of the eighth before turning the game over to closer
Brandon Lambright, who shut down the Bluejays in the ninth for his third save of the season.
ACU is now 7-4 on the season, while the Bluejays leave Abilene at 1-8 on the year. The Wildcats have now matched last year's 7-4 start, although this year's team has improved in several areas over last year's squad, not the least of which is offensive production.
Through 11 games, the Wildcats are hitting .304 with 32 extra-base hits (27 doubles) and they're averaging 6.1 runs per game. In fact, they've scored 67 runs in just 11 games after scoring just 182 runs in 53 games in 2016 while hitting just .241 as a team.
KEY INNING
The Wildcats trailed 1-0 before scoring two runs in the sixth inning with both coming in on a double by freshman outfielder
Anthony Dominguez. But Creighton got the game tied in the seventh and then scored again in the top of the eighth to take a 3-2 lead.
That merely set the stage for more ACU late-inning heroics as the Wildcats rallied for the win and the sweep. Sophomore centerfielder
Derek Scott led off with a single and then moved to third on a double by
Luis Trevino, who has now recorded a hit in all 11 ACU games this season.
Russell Crippen then reached on an infield single to load the bases before
Koby Claborn delivered the game-tying run with a single to right field, plating Scott.
Pinch-runner
Bradley Lewis was thrown out at the plate, but Crippen reached third on the throw to the plate, putting runners at first and third with one out. With the corner infielders in and the middle infielders back at double play depth, Dominguez grounded out slowly to second base, allowing Crippen to score the eventual game-winning run.
ON THE MOUND
Drew Hanson put together his best start of the season, going 5.0 innings and giving up just three hits and one unearned run while striking out four Bluejays, departing with his team trailing 1-0.
Caleb Dougherty and
Jonah Smith combined for the next two innings before freshman
Ryan Kotulek threw the eighth, giving up the go-ahead run and striking out two batters.
However, he earned his second collegiate win after ACU got the two runs in the bottom fo the eighth inning. Lambright then came on for the ninth inning and got the first two outs before giving up a single and a walk. Facing Isaac Collins with the tying and go-ahead runs on base, Lambright fell behind 1-2 before delivering back-to-back strikes that Collins watch go by to seal the deal on the sweep.
ACU is back in action Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. when it hosts Texas-Arlington at Crutcher Scott Field.
