SAN ANTONIO – Abilene Christian baseball ripped three of their 14 base hits in the ninth inning, but couldn't get the one to put them over the top as the Wildcats left runners in scoring position vs. closer Cody Allen and the Incarnate Word Cardinals which celebrated a 7-6 win and three-game sweep of ACU Sunday at Sullivan Field.
The Wildcats (10-4, 0-3 Southland) held early leads of of 3-1 and 4-2 only to see the game turned on its head when the Cardinals scored five times vs. starter
Colton Brasher and relievers
Brennan Lewis and
Garrett Hutson.
The Cardinals (11-6, 3-0 Southland) sent 11 batters to the plate with seven of the first eight reaching base. The home team tied the score at 4-4 when Ridge Rogers came home on Kyle Bergeron's fielder's choice RBI and took the lead on Lee Thomas' double to right-center gap. UIW further padded its advantage that frame on a run-scoring single by Eddy Gonzalez and sacrifice fly RBI to center by Mark Whitehead.
Allen came in to close the game in the eighth and first delivered a 1-2-3 inning but soon began to run into trouble with one out in the ninth. He walked leadoff batter
Caleb Kyle and allowed three-consecutive singles to
Dalton Dunn (3-for-5, 2 runs),
Koby Claborn and (2-for-4, run, RBI) and
Dalon Farkas (3-for-5, double, run, two RBI) to cut UIW's lead to 7-6.
But with pinch runner
Zach Smith at third and Farkas at second, Allen handled a comebacker off the bat of
Colton Eager for out No. 2 and got
Robert Salazar to end the game with a ground ball to third.
ACU's top half of the order earlier was responsible for giving the Wildcats a 3-0 lead in the first as four-straight singles by Dunn, Claborn, Farkas and Matt Muñoz were followed by a two-run single by
Derek Scott, and in the sixth, ACU pushed its lead to 4-2 on pinch hitter
Lane Bourland's RBI single up the middle, scoring
Seth Watts from second base.
UIW hung with ACU thanks to runs in the second and fourth. The Cardinals scored their first run in the second on Whitehead's double to left-center field and made it a 3-2 game on Ryan Gonzalez' suicide squeeze bunt that scored Eddy Gonzalez.
Brasher went on to pitch a clean fifth with two strikeouts and had an easy time in the sixth, working around a two-out walk by getting a pop-up back to the mound. Overall, he struck out three batters in his 6.1 innings of work and recorded 11 ground outs, including a pair of double plays to close the first and second innings.
Luke Taggart started for the Cardinals and picked up three Ks in 7.0 innings to improve to 2-1.
The Wildcats return to action with a Tuesday night home game vs. Baker. First pitch is 6:30 p.m.
