RAMS Baseball sweep UT-Brownsville to lead the RRAC South
Austin --- The Rams baseball team sweep conference rival UT-Brownsville winning all three games, 9-3, 3-2, and 7-6 to take a commanding lead in the South Division of the Red River Athletic Conference with at 6-0 record. The Rams stay even with #22 ranked Texas Wesleyan in the North Division in their quest for a conference title.
In Game 1 senior right-hander Chris Tuttle (Austin, TX / Bowie HS) pitching 7 strong innings increasing his team leading strikeouts to 43 and picking up his 5th win of the season. Tuttle allowed 2 runs on 3 hits with 9 strikeouts. Sophomore Luke Decker (Pflugerville, TX / Pflugerville HS) pitched the last two innings using his defense to preserved the win for Tuttle.
Patrick Hines (Houston, TX / Prairie View A&M) got the Rams going leading off the third inning with a home run over the right center field fence. The Rams picked up two more runs on 4 Scorpion errors to take the lead for good at 3-2.
Game 2 had junior Jeremy Macklin (Austin, TX / Bowie HS) throwing his second complete game of the season and getting his 4th win while allowing 2 runs on 6 hits and striking out 8 scorpion batters. Macklin leads the Rams in ERA at 1.50 and is second in opposing batting average at .173.
With the score 2-1 in favor of the Scorpions, Michael Hearn (Houston, TX / Prairie View A&M) led off the bottom of the seventh inning with 345 foot home run over the left field fence to tie the score at 2-2. Hines followed with a single up the middle and then scored the winning run on a sacrifice fly by Howard Limuel IV (Hutto, TX / Hutto HS) to deep left field.
Game 2 had senior Travis O’Donnell (Austin TX / Bowie HS) battling to get his third win and third complete game going all 9 innings in a come from behind win 7-6. O’Donnell got support from senior Tony Enos (Austin, TX / Bowie HS) who drove in 4 runs on a double and single in 4 trips to the plate. Sophomore Airrik Martinez (Austin, TX / Akins HS) led the Rams with 3 hits and touching the plate once.
In the bottom of the 8th inning with the score tied at 6, Hines reached first base on a scorpion error and Martinez laid down a perfect bunt and beat the ball to first base for an infield hit. Hines was able to go all the way to third to put the winning run just 90 feet away. Enos stepped up and hit the next pitch to center field to score Hines as the winning run. O’Donnell then pitched a perfect three-up-three down top of the ninth to secure the 11th win in a row for the Rams.
Recap of the Series: Martinezwent 3 for 4 batting .750 in his one game played. Hines followed with an 8 for 16 performance with 3 RBI’s and scored 9 runs. Enos collected 4 doubles and tied for the week with Limuel IV with 10 RBI’s each. Hearn added 9 RBI’s with a 6 for 14 and scored 7 runs. Six different Rams hit home runs in the 5 games for the week. The Rams are on an eleven game winning streak dating back to Monday, March 17.
Next Opponent: The Rams travel to NCAA I Houston Baptist University for a three game series with a single game starting on Friday, April 4, at 2:00 pm and a doubleheader on Saturday, April 5, starting at 12:00 pm.