Box Score FT. WORTH -- Abilene Christian made some middle-inning noise, but couldn't overcome the several crooked numbers posted early by No. 20 TCU Tuesday night at a cool
Lupton Stadium (51 degrees). The Horned Frogs won the game 14-4, in improving to 4-0 on the young season.
ACU's loss was its first of the spring following the Wildcats' four-game home sweep of Utah Valley.
TCU jumped out to a 2-0 lead against starter
Spencer Chirpich, who was the Wildcats' 2019 leader with seven wins and 64 strikeouts. An error led to a RBI double off the bat of Tommy Sacco, and two batters later Gene Wood shot a rocket off
Chirpich's glove into center field to make it a 2-0 game.
The Horned Frogs then placed a pair of runners in scoring position, but
Chirpich minimized the damage with consecutive swinging strikeouts of Conner Shepherd and Zach Humphreys.
Humphreys again would go down swinging (vs. reliever
Tyler Morgan) in the second inning but only after TCU padded its lead with four runs via two infield miscues and a bases-clearing triple off the center field wall by Austin Henry.
From there the Horned Frogs added a three-run Porter Brown home run (vs.
Ben Johnson) in the third inning, a two-run moon shot to right by Gray Rodgers in the fourth (vs.
Genner Cervantes) and fifth-inning solo blast by Gene Wood (vs.
Colby Adkins).
Adkins put up a zero in the sixth, but in the seventh, reliever
Zach Smith surrendered TCU's fourth round-tripper of the night to Hunter Wolfe.
ACU was held off the scoreboard until the fifth inning. Against reliever Jacob
Meador,
Mitchell Dickson led off with a hit by pitch and with one out
Ryne Randle drew a base on balls. Then Hayden
Clearman dropped an RBI single into left fielder to plate Dickson. But the threat soon ended as pinch runner
Seth Watts was tagged out sliding into third and
Meador struck out Alexei
Cazarin to end the threat.
Meador eventually was chased from the game in the sixth as an infield single from Cameron
Cromer was followed by a
Tommy Cruz walk and a blast off the right-center field fencing by
Colton Eager.
Then against reliever Marcelo Perez, Hunter
Geiser slapped a single up the middle to plate both Cruz and Eager for the Wildcats' third and fourth runs.
Geiser and Clearman each registered multi-hit games.
Clearman, who came into the game as a defensive replacement in the third inning, produced three opposite-field singles, and Geiser ripped a double and single.
On a Johnny Allstaff night for the Wildcats, Chirpich and Morgan each had a pair of strikeouts, while eighth inning reliever
Austin Glaze became the second ACU pitcher this week to record four K in a single frame.
Johnnie Krawietz did the same Sunday in the first inning vs. Utah Valley.
The Wildcats' road swing continues this weekend with a three-game set at UC Santa Barbara, which is off to a 3-1 start following the Gauchos' 17-7 win Monday vs. Cal.
