ABILENE – McNeese jumped out to a 4-0 lead over ACU early Friday night and held on to beat ACU, 7-4, in the first game of a three-game Southland Conference series at Crutcher Scott Field.
The loss is the 10th straight for the Wildcats, who are now 9-17 overall and 1-12 in the Southland Conference. McNeese, meanwhile, improved to 21-9 and 11-2. The series will continue Saturday at 2 p.m. with the series finale set for 1 p.m. Sunday.
McNeese – which leads the league in both batting average and runs scored – got on the board with two runs in the first, one more in the second and one more in the third to take a 4-0 lead. All four of those runs came off freshman starting pitcher
Nick Skeffington, who struck out six Cowboys in four innings of work, but was tagged with the loss to fall to 1-2.
ACU got back in the game in the bottom of the fourth with three runs as
Russell Crippen drove in a run when he reached on an error and
Aaron Draper drove in a pair with a double to right-centerfield to cut the McNeese lead to 4-3. Crippen finished the game 0 for 4, snapping his hitting streak at 25 games this season (26 dating back to the final game of last season), the second-longest streak in program history.
McNeese put the game away in the sixth, though, with a pair of runs to push its lead back to 6-3. The Cowboys stretched the lead to 7-3 in the seventh when Shane Selman hit a solo home run, McNeese's league-leading 29th home run this season.
Austin Sanders picked up the win for the Cowboys to improve to 3-2 on the season.
