ABILENE -- Texas-Arlington scored two runs in the second inning and tacked on two big runs in the eighth and ninth innings Wednesday night at Crutcher Scott Field and then held off an ACU rally to beat the Wildcats, 5-4, snapping ACU's seven-game winning streak.
The Wildcats are now 7-5 on the season, while the Mavericks improve to 6-7. ACU will be back in action this weekend when it hosts Incarnate Word in the Southland Conference-opening series at Crutcher Scott Field. The Wildcats and Cardinals will get the three-game set started Friday at 6 p.m. with the second game set for a 2 p.m. start Saturday. The series will wrap up Sunday at 1 p.m.
ACU trailed Wednesday night's game 4-1 going to the bottom of the eighth when the Wildcats pieced together a rally against UTA's Austin Gardner and Adam Meyer. With one out,
Dalon Farkas -- who homered on the first pitch of the bottom of the first inning -- doubled to left field in front of a
Derek Scott walk.
Luis Trevino -- riding an 11-game hitting streak entering the game -- fell behind Gardner 0-2 before evening the count at 2-2 and then fouling off three straight pitches before getting one he could handle and driving it into right-centerfield for an RBI single. Trevino's streak-extending hit cut the UTA lead to 4-2. With two outs,
Koby Claborn singled up the middle off Meyer to drive in Scott to cut the UTA lead to 4-3.
Hunter Markwardt -- who had entered the game as a defensive replacement in right field in the top of the eighth -- then laid down a bunt toward third base, but was thrown out by a step by Brady Cox to end the inning.
The Mavericks tacked on what would become an important insurance run in the top of the ninth when Will Olson singled to left and scored on Quintin Rohrbaugh's double to right-centerfield, pushing the lead to 5-3. After Caleb Doughtery got a loud fly ball out from Noah Vaughan, closer
Brandon Lambright came on and got the final two outs of the inning to send the game to the bottom of the ninth with ACU trailing 5-3.
Freshman catcher
Cole Solomon led the inning off with a solo home run to left to cut the UTA lead to 5-4, and ACU immediately got the game-tying run on base when
Mark Pearson singled to left. After
Aaron Draper dropped down a sacrifice bunt on a 1-2 pitch, Farkas popped out to the shortstop for the second out.
Scott -- who had an infield hit in the third to extend his hitting streak to nine games -- was intentionally walked because Trevino had been lifted from the game for a pinch-runner in the eighth inning.
Bradley Lewis came up as the Wildcats' last hope to extend the streak, and he flew out to left to end the game.
