Baseball: May 21 Scoreboard
UIW 11, Omaha 9
Arizona 9, Abilene Christian 0
UIW 11, Omaha 9
OMAHA, NEBRASKA –
John Shull (San Antonio/Churchill) pitched 4.2 innings in relief and earned the win, as the University of the Incarnate Word baseball team recovered from a 6-2 early deficit to defeat Omaha, 11-9 in the first game of a non-conference three-game series on Thursday at Ballpark at Boys Town.
The Cardinals (21-31) took an early 2-0 lead with RBI's from
Austin Hoffman (Goodyear, AZ/Millenium HS) and
Ethan McGill (Penn Valley, CA/Nevada Union HS) in the first inning, but the Mavericks tied the game after just two batters when Cole Gruber hit a two-run homer to spark a four-run first inning. Omaha added two more in the second inning to take the 6-2 lead.
Shull came in and quieted the Maverick bats keeping them scoreless until a two-run home run in the sixth inning. He allowed six hits in 4.2 innings, two earned runs, one walk and one strikeout.
The UIW offense helped Shull out with a five-run third inning. Hoffman hit a two-run double down the left field line and McGill followed with a single to bring in Hoffman. A
Jesse Hoover(Marion/Marion HS) sac fly and an RBI single from
Mark Whitehead (San Antonio/Johnson HS) concluded the big inning.
UIW took an 8-6 lead after an RBI double by
Brance Kahle (Colleyville/Grapevine Faith HS) in the fourth inning. The Mavs tied the game in the bottom of the sixth inning on a two-run homer by Clayton Taylor. The Cardinals went back on top in the seventh inning when Whitehead smacked a two-run homer, the first of his career. Omaha scored an unearned run in the bottom of the seventh, but that would be all they would get.
UIW head coach
Danny Heep went to
Cody Richey (Comfort/Comfort HS) for a six-out save. Richey was up for the job as he retired all six batters he faced to earn his second save of the season.
The Cardinals collected 15 hits in the game. Whitehead went 2-for-4 with three runs, three RB and that home run.
Aaron Warren (Schertz/Wagner HS) extended his hitting streak to 11 games with a pair of hits. He scored two runs, including an insurance run in the ninth and stole two bases. Hoffman had three hits, three RBI's and a run scored, McGill had two hits, two RBI's and two runs and Kahle finished with a four-hit day at the plate, including a run scored and a run driven in. Kahle is hitting .448 in the month of May and has raised his season average 36 points up since April 26.
For the Mavericks (19-31), Gruber and Taylor led the offense as both finished with a 2-for-4 game, two RBI's and a home run each. The top four batters in their lineup combined for eight runs while the rest scored only one run. Omaha used six pitchers and Brett Sasse got tabbed with the loss.
The two teams will continue the series with game two tomorrow at 2:00 p.m.
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Arizona 9, Abilene Christian 0
TUCSON, Ariz. – Two nights after a solid overall performance in ACU’s 4-1 loss to 12th-ranked Arizona State in Tempe, the ACU Wildcats were a shell of that team in a x-x loss to unranked Arizona.
ACU made a pair of errors and a couple of critical defensive mistakes and Arizona’s offense kept the pressure on ACU with baseunners in every inning and six stolen bases on its way to the shutout victory over their Wildcat counterparts from Texas at Hi Corbett Field.
The loss drops the Wildcats to 15-38 on the season, while Arizona improves to 29-23. ACU and Arizona will conclude the short two-game series Friday at 6 p.m. MT (8 p.m. Abilene time) before ACU wraps up the 2015 season Saturday at 2 p.m. MT (4 p.m.) against Hawaii from Hi Corbett Field.
ACU – which has taken on some of the top of the teams in the country in 2015 and, for the most part, played them off their feet – were simply never in the game Thursday night. A key error in the second helped lead to three Arizona runs, and a pair of defensive lapses in the fourth inning helped lead to four more runs.
While the Wildcats were having their troubles defensively, the Arizona Wildcats were playing solid defense behind their redshirt freshman starting pitcher, Rio Gomez. Second baseman Scott Kingery took two hits away from Tyler Eager with nice diving plays up the middle, and shortstop Kevin Newman took another away from him in the ninth with a great play deep in the hole, throwing Eager out by a step.
Gomez – making his first start after not going more than two innings in any of his 14 relief appearances on the season – went seven innings, allowing just two hits and four walks while striking eight Wildcats. Aaron Draper and Kyle Carroll had the only hits of the night for ACU: a triple for Carroll in the third and a single by Draper in the fifth as ACU was shut out for the fourth time on the season.
Nate Cole got the start and the loss for the Wildcats as he never found a rhythm. Cole allowing seven hits and seven runs (five earned) while walking five Arizona batters and striking out three. He threw 92 pitches in those four innings and left the game trailing 7-0.
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