ACU Baseball Keeps Season Alive with 7-2 Win
By: Lance Fleming
Updated: May 6, 2012
SAN
ANGELO - Austin Palmer's left arm and Travis Schuetze's bat kept the
ACU Wildcats' season alive Sunday as they knocked off Texas
A&M-Kingsville, 7-2, in a Lone Star Conference Post-Season
Tournament elimination game at Foster Field.
The win pushes
ACU to 25-27 on the season and into Monday afternoon's elimination game
against an opponent to be determined later Sunday. ACU will play at
3:30 p.m. Monday and, with a win, could play again
Monday at 7 p.m. ACU's win eliminates the No. 2 seed Javelinas from the
tournament with a 31-16 record.
The Wildcats' win
puts an end to an eight-game losing streak, the program's longest skid
in head coach Britt Bonneau's 16 seasons.
Palmer entered
Sunday's start with a 1-2 record and 5.89 ERA while his opponent on the
mound, Jaden Dillon, brought an 8-1 record and 1.80 ERA into the game.
Dillon's efforts earned him LSC Pitcher of
the Year honors, but the Wildcats gave him a rude send-off to his season
by collecting seven hits and six runs (four earned) in six innings.
ACU got on the
board with a run in the first inning on a sacrifice fly by Tyler Eager
that scored Chuck Duarte. The Javelinas got the game tied in the third
with a run against Palmer, but the Wildcats
went to work in the middle innings to keep their season alive.
First the Wildcats got three runs in the fifth and then two more in the sixth to push their lead to 6-1 over the Javelinas.
In the fifth,
Reed Watson reached and went to second on a throwing error by second
baseman Ben Villafuerte. Ryan Luckie then dropped down a bunt to move
Watson to third, but all runners were safe when
Dillon threw late to third in an attempt to throw out the lead runner.
Schuetze then
singled through the left side to drive in Watson to make it 2-1. Luckie
then scored on a wild pitch, allowing Schuetze to move to third. He
then scored when Kevin Finklea lifted a sacrifice
fly to right to drive in a run and make it 4-1.
In the sixth,
Duncan Blades singled to right with one out in front of a walk by
Watson. Luckie grounded out to Dillon, but both runners moved up to
give ACU runners at second and third. Schuetze then
drove them both in with a single to right field that plated Watson and
Blades. Schuetze was thrown at second to end the inning trying to go to
second on the throw home.
The Wildcats put
another run on the board in the bottom of the seventh when Kyle Conwell
delivered an RBI single up the middle that drove in Finklea to make it
7-1.
While the
Wildcats were putting together their best offensive outing in a couple
of weeks, Palmer shut down Kingsville's offense, scattering eight hits
over nine complete innings, his third complete game
of the season, but first in a nine-inning game.
Palmer allowed
single runs in the third and eighth, but was never in any trouble,
allowing just one earned run and throwing 129 pitches in the process.
