HUNTSVILLE – Junior
Dalon Farkas cracked a dramatic two-out, two-run home run in the ninth inning to extend his season-best hitting streak to 16 games and send Saturday night's game at Sam Houston State into extra innings, but it was there in the 10th that everything seemingly fell apart as four bases on balls led to a 7-6 walkoff win for the Bearkats.
Farkas homered in his final at-bat to finish the evening 1-for-4 with a run and three RBI. Earlier he scored a sixth-inning run that briefly tied the score at 2-2, and in the seventh he was credited with a fielder's choice RBI that led to a second run being scored following an errant throw by Sam Houston shortstop Andrew Fregia.
That miscue provided ACU with a 4-3 lead and easily could have opened the door to additional runs as Farkas and
Colton Eager were now stationed at second and third base with one, but reliever Dakota Mills squashed the threat with a pair of fly balls to the left side.
Hurting even worse were the three runs Sam Houston scored between the seventh and eighth innings in regaining a 6-4 lead. Starter
Garrett Hutson, who had allowed just two earned runs by the time he reached the seventh, surrendered a leadoff double to Eric Bohnert and a subsequent wild pitch allowed the Bearkats' center fielder to score the tying run on Trey Ochoa's fly ball to center field. Two batters later, right fielder Hunter Hearn clubbed his sixth home run of the spring.
Caleb Dougherty and
Ryan Knowles both pitched in the eighth, combining to give up one run on two hits, a hit batsman and a sacrifice fly. Dougherty started the frame with consecutive singles surrendered to Fregia and Clayton Harp, and a fielding error by Eager in right field allowed Fregia to get to third base. Knowles hit the first batter he faced, but then struck out pinch hitter Riley McKnight before giving up the insurance run on Bohnert's fly ball to center field.
Derek Scott came on board after Farkas had tied the score a final time at 6-6 and delivered a 1-2-3 ninth, which included a punchout of cleanup batter Blake Chisolm, but his command simply wasn't there in the 10th as he walked four of the six batters he faced – one intentionally following a sacrifice bunt. The Wildcats' got their second out on a 5-4 fielder's choice, which placed runners at the corners, but soon afterward Scott lost Bohnert on a five-pitch walk and Ochoa after seven.
Scott had just got Ochoa to look at strike two and foul off a pitch before issuing ball four.
The Wildcats' grabbed the game's first lead for the second consecutive night as
Zach Smith's RBI fielder's choice scored
Riley Donahue from third base, but the Bearkats' countered with three runs from the third to sixth innings. The home team tied the score at 1-1 in the third on an infield single, and grabbed a 2-1 lead in the fifth thanks in part to a two-out fielding error that led to a stolen base and Ben Haefner's RBI single into right field.
Then after ACU scored its second run (Farkas) in the sixth inning on Matthew Muñoz RBI ground ball to shortstop, Jordan Cannon brought the lead back to his team with a one-out grounder to third base, plating Fregia, who scored three times this evening to go with his two singles and the game-winning run in the 10th.
The Wildcats and Bearkats conclude their three-game set Saturday at 1 p.m.
