BEAUMONT – Matt Munoz doubled in a run in the top of the 13th inning Sunday afternoon and
Brennan Lewis worked around a minor jam in the bottom half of the inning as ACU salvaged the final game of a three-game Southland Conference series at Lamar with a 5-4 win at Vincent-Beck Stadium.
The win pushes the Wildcats to 19-19 overall and 5-16 in the league, while the Cardinals fall to 13-27 and 8-13. ACU now has four straight non-conference games before getting back to Southland Conference play the first weekend of May when it hosts Central Arkansas for a three-game series. ACU is at Texas A&M at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday before heading to New York for a three-game series next Friday and Saturday against Siena in Loudonville, N.Y.
The Wildcats trailed 3-2 going to the top of the ninth before Munoz was hit by a pitch to put the game-tying run on base. After
Caleb Kyle flew out for the second out of the inning,
Dalon Farkas fell into an 0-2 hole against LU pitcher Jace Campbell before he pulled an 0-2 pitch over the fence in left-centerfield to give the Wildcats a 4-3 lead.
Lamar, however, got the game tied in the bottom of the ninth on a sacrifice fly by Cole Girouard, sending the game into extra innings. Lamar had a chance to win the game in the 10th when it put runners on second and third with one out before Lewis got a strikeout and a lineout to get out of the inning. Neither team had much of a scoring chance in the 11th or 12th innings before ACU got on the board in the 13th.
With one out,
Zach Smith reached on an infield single and one out later came around to score the eventual game-winning run when Munoz drilled a double into left-centerfield, giving ACU a 5-4 lead. Lamar got the tying run to third base in the bottom of the 13th before Lewis coaxed a groundout by Girouard to end the game.
Farkas gave ACU a 1-0 lead in the first on an RBI infield single that plated Munoz before Lamar answered with a run in the bottom of the first. Lamar took a 3-1 lead in the bottom of the second, chasing ACU starting pitcher
Garrett Hutson. Munoz then led off the third inning with a home run to right field to cut ACU's deficit to 3-2, which is where the game stayed until the ninth inning.
ACU relief pitcher
Caleb Dougherty — who entered the game in place of Hutson — was terrific with six innings of four-hit baseball. He gave up one unearned run and struck out three Cardinals to keep the game within reach.
Ryan Knowles gave up just two hits and struck out two Cardinals in 1 1/3 innings before Lewis allowed just one hit and three weeks while striking out a pair of Cardinals in 3 2/3 innings, picking up the win to improve to 3-0.
Munoz – who hit for the cycle last weekend against Houston Baptist – was a triple short of another cycle Sunday as he finished 4 for 6 with three runs scored and a pair of RBI. Farkas was also a triple short of the cycle as he, too, was 4 for 6 with one run scored and three RBI. They combined for eight of the Wildcats' 12 hits in the game.
