The West Texas A&M Buffaloes took this past weekend’s series against the Angelo State Rams, two games to one. It was almost a historic week for the Buffs, winning three straight games on a walk-off before finally falling short to the Rams in Saturday’s doubleheader nightcap. The Buffs, who were down most of the game, and at one point down 9-1 in the sixth inning, ended up having a rally in the bottom of the eighth, scoring six runs to make the score 9-7 before ultimately falling short.
The Buffs, who have gotten in a habit of splitting doubleheaders as of late, have fallen two games behind the Javelinas of Texas A&M Kingsville in the LSC standings after the Javelinas won both games of their doubleheader against Eastern New Mexico.
The Buffs went into the nightcap on Saturday with three straight walk-off wins. The first game of the Saturday doubleheader was one of those games that went the Buffs way late in the game. In the last inning of the game, the Buffs were down two runs to one with two outs, but the bases loaded. Pinch hitter Jace Reese came up to the plate and on an 0-2 count hit a single that scored two of the Buffs runners and gave the Buffs the win.
“It felt good to capitalize,” Reese said. “I’ve had a few moments like this in my career and you get used to it, and this time it paid off.”
The Buffs also won the first game of the three game series on Friday in dramatic fashion as the Rams committed five errors that allowed the Buffs to stay in the game. The game went 11 innings before the Buffs scored on a fielder’s choice to win the game.
The fact that the Buffs have had so many tight, one run games that have often ended with a late game rally is not lost on them and head coach Matt Vanderburg. Vanderburg said it’s important that they’ve had a lot of those games up to this point.
“We’ve played a lot of one run games, and we’re starting to win more of those as of late,” Vanderburg said. “That’s why I told our guys, especially when we were losing in some of those games early on, we’re learning from even these losses right now, and it’s benefited us the last couple of weeks and we’ve been able to figure out ways to win those games.”
The Buffs now go on to face Tarleton State April 24-25 in Stephenville. Tarleton State (17-19, 11-15 LSC) is a team that Vanderburg said is a tough pitching team, even if they have struggled as of late.
“They’re always known as a pitching team,” Vanderburg said. “This year they’ve struggle a little bit more on the mound, but they’re still going to be very well coached, they’re going to do everything right. They’re more of a small ball type team, so I imagine it’ll be a lot of one run games.”
The next few weeks will also be crucial for the Buffs as the first regional rankings will be released on April 22. The Buffs region only takes six teams to the regional tournament, so the Buffs need to string wins together to stay in the hunt.
“Our first regional rankings come out this Wednesday,” Vanderburg said. “It’ll be interesting to see how they come out. I imagine we’ll be somewhere five through eight in the regional rankings. We got to win a lot of ball games the next couple of weeks. Every game is important and if we can win some, that’s what we’re shooting for, to hopefully get in a region tournament.”
The Buffs have two more series left before the conference tournament on May 7-9.
