SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Baseball) – If you were fortunate enough to follow Tuesday's four-hour plus nonconference tilt at No. 20 St. Mary's University (26-7), you saw early offense, an army of pitchers and small ball, three ingredients that can possibly lead your team to Cary, N.C. for the 2015 College World Series.
Wesley Aguilar's two-run squeeze play in the eighth tied the game, but the Rattlers returned the favor in the 13
th, scoring the game-winning run on a walk off bunt single at Dickson Stadium to defeated #RV Texas A&M University-Kingsville (20-15), 9-8.
There were four ties in the South Central Region contest.
Brayton Carlson went 2-for-4 with three runs and an RBI,
Cline Andrews was 2-for-5 with two RBI and two runs at the dish and Aguilar drove in three in the extra-inning loss.
Patience allowed the Hogs to strike first as three walks and a hit by pitch began the game. Andrews' fielder's choice brought in a run and a fielding error allowed the second run to cross the plate, giving the Javelinas a 2-0 lead. Carlson followed with an RBI single and after a pitching change,
Larren Artis doubled to left to bring in the fourth run of the inning.
StMU answered back with three runs on three hits and an error in the bottom and took a 5-4 lead after tacking on two in the second.
The back and forth continued after
Hayden Vesely, who reached on a leadoff walk, came around to score on Andrews' RBI triple to tie the game at 5. In the bottom frame, Brooks Orton drilled a single to put St. Mary's back up by one.
The marathon trickled to the sixth, when Carlson led off the inning with a double and tied the game at 6-6 on an RBI single by Aguilar.
The Rattlers forced a TAMUK pitching change and took a 7-6 lead on an RBI single off the bat of Jacob Marler. StMU tacked on another run for a two-run cushion.
Small ball was executed to perfection in the top of the eighth as three sacrifice bunts, highlighted by Aguilar's two-run squeeze, tied the game at 8-all heading into the bottom of the inning.
Ryan Scott entered the game in the eighth and settled down to strand the go-ahead run at third base on a strikeout and ground out. He stayed in the game and threw 4.0 scoreless innings, punching out six to extend his consecutive scoreless innings streak to 16.0.
Lance Elling (0-1) was charged with his first loss of the season in 1.1 innings of work and Connor Camacho (2-0) earned the win after 3.0 scoreless innings in relief.
The Javelinas return to Nolan Ryan Field for a four-game set versus Cameron University beginning on Friday, April 10 at 6 p.m.
For full coverage of Kingsville baseball, please follow @TAMUKBaseball14 on Twitter and @JavelinaAthletics on Instagram, like our Facebook page (Javelina Nation) and subscribe to the JavelinaAthletics YouTube channel.
