The Angelo State baseball team (22-18, 15-15 LSC) took both games of the doubleheader from Southwestern Oklahoma (19-18, 13-14 LSC) Friday afternoon in Weatherford, Okla. The Rams took game one, 15-7, before erasing a four-run deficit to take game two, 10-8, in 10 innings.
In the first game on the docket, the Rams scored in every inning and began in their first at bat with two runs on two hits. After the first three batters reached safely to begin the game, Keith Towne singled to right which scored Clay Puckett and Dylan Petrich.
The Bulldogs did not trail for long as they tied the game in the bottom of the frame. After Nelson Espinal led off with a single, and advanced to second on a sacrifice, Michael Felton drove him home with a single for the first run. Hector Contin followed that with a single which sent Felton to third and John-Andrew Martin brought Felton home to tie the game, 2-2.
ASU broke the tie in the top of the second when Puckett doubled home Garcia who had singled just before him. The Rams added a fourth run to their total in the third when Austin Lasprilla brought home Zak Leonhardt on a sacrifice fly to left.
The Rams took control of the game in the fourth with four runs on three hits, a balk and a wild pitch. Garcia and Puckett combined for the first run when Garcia led off with a single and ran home on Puckett's second double of the game. Puckett eventually scored on the balk while Petrich came home on groundout and Leonhardt came home on a wild pitch to make the score 8-2.
While the Rams added a run in the fifth, three in the sixth on Chris Adamson's three-run home run and three in the seventh, the Bulldogs made it close in the later innings with a run in the fifth and four in the sixth. Chase Barrera got the start for the Rams, going five innings and giving up all seven runs on eight hits with six strikeouts to improve to 3-2 on the season while Chris Rogers took the loss for SWOSU to drop to 0-2.
The start for the Rams in game two was eerily similar to game one's beginning. Garcia led off with a double and eventually came home on an RBI-single by Towne. As in the first game, SWOSU would tie the game in the lower half of the inning on an RBI-single by Martin which scored Hector Iribe who had singled and advanced to second on a single by Felton.
The two schools remained tied at 1-1 until the Rams broke the tie in the fourth. Towne led off the inning with a single and Adamson brought him home with his second home run of the day, and his fifth of the season, to put the Rams up, 3-1.
Southwestern Oklahoma got one run back on a solo home run by Louie Lancaster in the bottom of the fourth but grabbed its first lead of the day one inning later with five runs on five hits, the big blow being a three-run triple by Travis Rose to put the Bulldogs up, 7-3, after five innings.
The Rams got three of the runs back in the top of the sixth on a two-run double by Travis Lites that scored Adamson and Towne and an RBI-single by Garcia that scored Lites. The Rams would re-tie the game in the eighth when Adamson singled, advanced to third on a Lites single and came home when Jason Morriss beat out what could have been an inning-ending double play.
After neither team would score in the ninth, the Rams would regain the lead in the 10th inning and all on one swing. Lasprilla, pinch hitting for Scott Pollard with Adamson on second and Lites on first and two outs, belted his fifth home run of the season to give the Rams a 10-7 lead.
The Bulldogs would not go down easily and they mounted a threat to tie the game in their last at bat. Contin began the inning with a solo home run, cutting the deficit to two. Jason Stover followed that with a pinch-hit single to bring the tying run to the plate with no outs. Adam Miller, the fourth pitcher of the game, settled down and got Rose to fly out to center, Lancaster to fly out to right and Chris Stevenson to line out to shortstop to end the game
Adam Miller pitched the final 5.1 innings to earn the win and even his record at 2-2. The only run he allowed was the home run to Contin as he scattered three hit with two strikeouts. Brock Abbadini, who came on in relief of starter Red Patterson to pitch the 10th, got the loss and dropped to 3-2 on the year.
The two schools will conclude their four-game series on Friday with another doubleheader. First pitch for the twin bill is set for 12 p.m. and live stats will be available on SWOSU's athletics web site.
