KINGSVILLE, TEXAS – The Texas A&M-Kingsville and East Central University baseball teams split a pair of Lone Star Conference games on Friday at Nolan Ryan Field. The Javelinas (2-2, 1-1) won the first game 11-3 and the Tigers (1-3, 1-1) won the second game 8-5. (Game 1, Game 2)
In the first game, the Javelinas used a strong pitching performance from senior left-hander Sam Strickland (Houston/Spring Woods HS) to win the Lone Star Conference opener. Strickland pitched a complete game allowing six hits, three runs and two walks while striking out five in seven innings. He made one mistake in the game and Tiger designated hitter Andrew Minnich made him pay with a three-run homer.
The Javelina offense had its best game of the season scoring two runs in each of the first three innings. Travis Earles (Houston/Blinn JC) drove in Clifton Thomas (San Diego, CA/Cajon Valley HS) with a double and came around to score himself on Philip Johnson’s (Malibu, CA/Malibu HS) single to centerfield. In the second inning, Thomas brought home two runs with a towering homer to right center field. In the third inning, Johnson scored on a sacrifice fly from Luis Diaz (Santa Ana, CA/Cypress College) and then Will Mettlach (Hallettsville/McAllen HS) drove in a run with a triple.
In the fifth inning, Thomas Miller (Las Vegas, NV/Western Nevada) led off with a home run for the Javelinas to make the score 7-0. After Minnich’s blast made it 7-3 in the top of the sixth inning, the Javelinas came back with four more runs in the bottom half of the inning. Johnson struck the big blow with a two-run homer.
The Javelinas rapped out 12 hits in the game with five going for extra bases. Johnson went 3-for-4 with three RBI’s and two runs scored. Earles, Miller and Mettlach each had two hits in the game and combined for four RBI’s and five runs. Thomas scored three runs and drove in a pair. Strickland improved to 1-0 on the season.
The Tigers had six hits in the game with no one getting more than one base knock. Colt Simon was tagged with the loss on the mound after lasting just 2.0 innings and allowing four hits, four runs and one walk while striking out three.
The story of the second game was the ability of the Tigers to come up with the big hit and the inability of the Javelinas to do the same.
Tiger leadoff hitter Lucas Armenta opened the game with a solo home run. In the fourth inning, Dusty Rowland hit a two-out, full-count, three-run homer to give the visitors a 4-0 lead. The Tigers were able to tack on single runs in the fifth, seventh, eight and ninth innings despite a total of only four singles in those same innings.
Sloppy defense by the Hoggies was the culprit in the fifth and seventh innings and too many walks in the eighth and ninth led to the Tiger runs.
The Javelina offense struggled to mount any sort of rally in the early going. They left runners in scoring position in the second, third and fourth innings and then stranded the bases loaded in the sixth and seventh innings. Finally, in the eighth inning the Javs clustered four singles and a walk to score three runs.
In the ninth inning, it appeared that the Hoggies might make a charge to take the lead. They put the first three runners on base and scored twice, but then Kyle McCormick came on in relief for the Tigers and closed out the game to pick the save.
The Javelinas had 12 hits in the game with James Brown (Corpus Christi/San Jacinto JC), Thomas, Adrian Williams (Victoria/Memorial HS) and Robert Cox (Corpus Christi/Calallen HS) each picking up two hits. Williams had a double and Johnson had a triple for the squad.
Sophomore right-hander Steven Hooker (Houston/Spring Woods HS) was tagged with the loss as he allowed four hits, five runs and three walks while striking out four batters in five innings. Wes Callihan (Corpus Christi/Laredo CC) and Chris Brown (Humble/Nimitz HS) each pitched well in relief.
The Tigers were led by Armenta who went 2-for-4 with two RBI’s, three runs and a homer. No one else had more than one hit. The team only had seven hits, but took eight walks and was hit by one pitch.
Chasen Bennett pitched 5.1 scoreless innings to pick up the victory while allowing just five hits and one walk. McCormick struck out two batters in his one inning of work.
The two teams will meet again on Saturday for a double header starting at 1 o’clock at Nolan Ryan Field.
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