ABILENE – Abilene Christian baseball doubled its base hit total from three to six in the ninth inning as three-consecutive one-out singles scored the game-winning run in walkoff fashion as the Wildcats defeated Hartford in game one of their three-game series, 2-1, Friday night at Crutcher Scott Field.
SCHEDULE CHANGE
ACU and Hartford will conclude their three-game series with a Saturday doubleheader, starting at 1 p.m., with 45 minutes in between each game. There will be no game played on Sunday.
Designated hitter
Luis Trevino got the offense rolling with a single up the middle, and when reliever Jake Regula (0-2) was lifted for Drew Farkas the Wildcats replaced Trevino with pinch runner
Seth Watts.
Center fielder
Derek Scott followed with a chopper hit between the mound and home plate in legging out an infield single, and on the first pitch he saw from Farkas, first baseman
Koby Claborn slapped a RBI base hit into shallow right field. Watts never once slowed around the basepaths and evaded the tag up the third-base line as the ball bounced off the glove of Hartford catcher Drew Holtgrieve.
The Wildcats' victory evened their season record at 5-5 and made a winner out of
Hunter Spaeth, who was brilliant in relief by tossing four hitless innings with four strikeouts. Spaeth retired the side in order in the sixth after coming in for starter Spenser Chirpich, left a runner in scoring position to end the seventh, and got some help from catcher
Lane Bourland in the eighth as the junior backstop gunned Jackson Olson out at second base for the final out.
Spaeth's ninth inning consisted of a strikeout and two fly balls to the outfield. Scott made a terrific running catch to rob Holtgrieve of extra bases for the second out of the frame.
Chirpich was equally terrific in tying his season high of eight strikeouts through 5.0 innings. The junior from Fairmont, Minn. tossed a 1-2-3 first inning but soon got into trouble in the second as the first two batters reached base. He came back with two swinging strikeouts of No. 6 and 7 hitters Olson and John Thrasher, but Holtgrieve brought home the game's first run on a single hit back up the middle.
The Hawks (0-4) continued to threaten during Chirpich's outing by placing six runners on base between the third and sixth innings. ACU, however, escaped a bases-loaded jam in the third by spinning a 5-4-3 double play, and in the fourth Chirpich struck out Eric Bonkowski a second time with a runner at second base. Chirpich once more wiggled out of a two-out, runners at the corner situation in the fifth as second baseman
Dalton Dunn came down with a high pop up off the bat of No. 5 hitter Drew DeMartino.
Dunn then made an impact with his bat in the bottom of the fifth inning, drilling a triple to the right center gap and coming home to score on a throwing error by the Hawks' second baseman DeMartino, who was trying to throw Dunn out at third base. The ball instead landed in the visitor's dugout and Dunn was awarded home plate in tying the score at 1-1.
Nicholas Dombkowski started for Hartford and struck out 10 batters through 7.0 innings to lower his season ERA to 2.95.
