The Buffaloes of WTAMU hosted the Wildcats of Abilene Christian in a four game series held at
David and Myrt Wilder Park in Canyon, TX from April 5-7. The Buffs took three of the four games played in the pivotal Lone Star Conference match up.
The Buffs jumped on Abilene Christian on Friday, scoring five runs in the first two innings in what lead to a 7-3 victory. Seniors Parker Wood and Justin Henderson chipped in with an RBI a piece in the bottom of the first inning to put the Buffs up, 2-0.
The Wildcats got a run back in the top of the second with a home run from junior Kyle Giusti to cut the lead to 2-1. In the bottom of the second, however, the Buffs got RBI by junior Matt Redfearn, junior Patrick Ramirez and senior Mitch Tybroski to pull ahead, 5-1.
Senior Tate Baker added some insurance in the bottom of the sixth with his team leading fourth home run of the season, a two run shot that put the buffs up 7-2.
Junior Dylan James increased his record to 2-1 as he went for his third complete game of the season, his first nine-inning complete game. James allowed five hits, three earned runs and struck out seven while allowing one walk.
While WT got plenty of timely hits in the series, head coach Matt Vanderburg credited his pitching staff for a solid overall performance, as they allowed only nine runs in the entire series.
“We pitched it really well all weekend long,” Vanderburg said. “Even the loss that we suffered, (Josh) Weyker threw outstanding. I thought we did a good job.”
The Buffs dropped game two, the first game of Saturday’s double header, 3-0.
Junior Carter Hahn, ACU’s starting pitcher, was able to out duel Buffs junior starting pitcher Josh Weyker, allowing no runs on five hits, ten strikeouts and one walk for the seven inning complete game. Weyker went 5.2 innings, giving up two runs, one of which was earned, with two strikeouts and one walk and fell to 2-4 on the year.
In game two of Saturday’s double header, the Buffs scored all three of their runs in the third inning and were able to hold off the Wildcats for a 3-1 victory.
In the third, junior Beto Rodriguez and junior Patrick Ramirez were able to get on base with singles in front of Tybroski and Wood, who smashed back-to-back doubles to take a 3-0 lead. ACU was able to plate a run in the fifth, but were unable to muster much more against senior starting pitcher Paul Pulley, who went 6.2 innings, allowing only three hits and one earned run with three strikeouts to improve his record to 3-1.
In the fourth and final game of the series on Sunday, WT busted things wide open with an eight run fifth inning that catapulted them to an 11-2 victory. The Buffs trailed 2-1 going into the fifth, but loaded the bases with nobody out and were able to battle at the plate and work four consecutive walks. Tybroski would eventually bust the game wide open with a two-run single that put WT ahead for good, 9-2.
“We’re finally starting to swing it a little bit better,” Vanderburg said. “Our guys are really patient and we’ve been talking to them about being aggressive in the zone, but being patient out of the zone.”
Henderson added a towering solo home run home run in the bottom of the eighth inning to put WT up 11-2.
Senior pitcher Ryan Houston had a quality start, going seven innings and allowing only two earned runs on four hits, while striking out three and walking one for his third win of the season.
“We’ve said all year, Houston has our best stuff,” Vanderburg said. “He has struggled in some games, just one or two innings throughout the game, but he really threw well and we expect him to carry on from that.”
The Buffs improved to 21-14 overall and 8-8 in conference play. Their next game will be on April 9 at noon in Plainview, Texas against the Pioneers of Wayland Baptist.
