ABILENE – Abilene Christian baseball snapped a two-game losing streak and salvaged the final game of its Houston Baptist series with a come-from-behind 4-3 victory Sunday at Crutcher Scott Field. Junior
Derek Scott scored the game-winning run on
Dalton Dunn's bases-loaded fly ball to center field.
The Wildcats (17-17, 4-14 Southland) entered their final at-bat down 3-2 but started the ninth with back-to-back one-out right field singles off reliever Matt Heck from DH
Caleb Kyle and Scott. First baseman
Koby Claborn then ripped a run-scoring single through the right side, plating Kyle, who slid under the tag from catcher Erik Voller.
An intentional walk was then issued to
Riley Donahue, loading the bases for Dunn's heroics. Dunn finished the game 2-for-4 with a run and RBI.
The Wildcats' second baseman singled and scored the Wildcats first run in the second inning, but the Huskies soon took the lead in the fourth on Heck's two-run homerun to right field followed by a fifth-inning solo blast by Jonathan Ducoff. All those runs were allowed by
Jonathan Nicholson, who delivered an 81-pitch 6.0-inning quality start complete with two strikeouts and no walks.
HBU was presented with plenty more opportunities to pad their lead vs. reliever
Brennan Lewis, getting runners in scoring position over the final three innings. Lewis, however, would induce a 5-4-3 double play to escape the seventh, get Heck to fly out softly to right field to complete the eighth, and punch out Jack Fitzgerald on a called strike three with runners at the corners in the ninth.
Lewis allowed just one hit over the final three innings with two walks, two Ks and a hit batsman.
Brady Batten tossed 8.0 innings for the Huskies in the no-decision, allowing two runs on six hits, six walks with four Ks. Heck came into the game to start the ninth and got one quick ground out before surrendering the singles to Kyle (2-5) and Scott (1-4).
Kyle's seventh-inning double to center field vs. Batten was his eighth of the spring and scored pinch hitter
Nolan Ritchie all the way from first base to make it a 3-2 game.
Next up for the Wildcats is a Tuesday night game at TCU (6:30 p.m.) followed by a three-game Southland Conference weekend series at Lamar.
