Cruz drives in three to lead Wildcats to win over Penguins

Thursday, February 27

Abilene

6:35 p.m.

Abilene Christian

6-3

Youngstown State

2-5

Youngstown St.

Abilene Christian

Photo by: Meda Bow

Cruz drives in three to lead Wildcats to win over Penguins

2/27/2020 10:20:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score

ABILENE – Junior Tommy Cruz drove in three runs, sophomore Austin Wagner tossed six shutout innings of no-hit baseball, and ACU picked up a 5-2 win over the Horizon League's Youngstown State Thursday night at Crutcher Scott Field. The Wildcats (6-2) never trailed en route to their second straight win, and got the three-game series with the Penguins off to a great start.

Strong Pitching Continues

ACU's starting pitchers have now dropped their earned run average to a miniscule 1.37 after Austin Wagner's quality start. The south paw went 6.0 strong frames, allowing no runs and no hits to keep his ERA at 0.00 for the season.
Wagner went to 1-1 on the season with the victory, while Ben Johnson tossed two innings of scoreless and hitless relief work.
The lone hit from the Penguins came in the ninth inning on a two-run home run from Jeff Wehler, but the one hit is the least against the Wildcats this season.
Austin Glaze tossed the ninth inning for ACU.

Tommy "Cruz"-es at the Plate

Cruz was spectacular in the two-hole as the designated hitter. The Chandler-Gilbert CC transfer went 3-for-3 and drove in a game-best three runs as well. It all got started in the first.
Cameron Cromer led the home first off with a walk and a stole base, and reached third on a bad throw by the catcher. Cruz then drove him in with an rbi-single.
The junior rocketed one to right center field in the third inning, and the ball got by a diving right fielder and rolled all the way to the wall. The speedster raced around the bags and slid in safely with a rare inside-the-park homerun to put ACU up 2-0.
Leading 4-0 in the seventh, Cruz drew a bases-loaded walk to score Ryne Randle, and the Wildcats led 5-0.

Ryne Randle's Big Swing

After the 2-0 lead through three innings, senior Ryne Randle changed that in a hurry. The left-handed batter sent a missile off the yellow line at the top of the fence in right field that had an exit velocity of 100.7 miles/hour, and gave ACU a 4-0 advantage. Joseph Craig, who drew a two-out walk, scored on the play, and the lead was doubled.

Stat Pack

It was the first combined one-hitter for the baseball program since Feb. 27, 2018 against Texas-Permian Basin. Wagner, Johnson, and Glaze dominated in the win.
ACU recorded eight hits in total, with the other five coming from Cromer, Eric Wimpee, Mitchell Dickson, Randle, and Hayden Clearman.
Cruz recorded the sixth three-hit game a Wildcat this season, and the first for the junior.
ACU left five men on base, Youngstown State left just three on; the Penguins only recorded six runners on base in the game.

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