KINGSVILLE, Texas (May 15, 2021) – Just one loss on Saturday would have ended Lubbock Christian University's 2021 baseball season, and they came about as close to losing as possible. But the Chaps pulled through to beat Texas A&M Kingsville twice and advance to the second round of the Lone Star Conference Tournament.
In game one of Saturday's doubleheader, the Javelinas got within one out of eliminating the Chaps, leading 8-5 in the ninth inning.
Grant Griffin was on base at the time, and
Luis Navarro drew a four-pitch walk to bring up
Larry Leitha. On the first pitch of his at-bat, Leitha crushed a pitch over the left field to tie the game.
LCU followed with five runs in the 10
th inning to force the if-necessary game, which they won 9-5 to keep their season alive.
GAME ONE
The Chaps actually had the lead early in game one as well, scoring a run on a throwing error by the TAMUK shortstop and one on a solo home run by Leitha. The Javelinas immediately got the runs back in the bottom of the inning though, tying the game at 2-2.
Mason Donohoe and
Colin Gordon both had solo shots of their own in the second inning to give Lubbock Christian the lead again, but two runs in the third, one in the fourth and one in the fifth pushed Texas A&M-Kingsville back in front.
Owen Woodward was the starter for LCU in the first game of the day, but he gave way to
Cade Acrey after three innings. Acrey handed the middle four and a third innings, allowing three runs on five hits and striking out five.
Eduardo Acosta got the Chap offense back into things with yet another solo shot in the seventh, but TAMUK tacked on two more insurance runs in the seventh and eighth. After the home run in the eighth,
Tyler Hardwick came on to pitch and recorded the frame's final two outs.
After Leitha's heroics in the ninth, TAMUK was able to put two runners on with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, but Hardwick hit the zone for a strikeout looking that sent the game to extras.
A Donohoe double started off the extra frame, and he advanced to third while Gordon walked. A safety squeeze by Griffin loaded the bases with one out, and Acosta and
George Mendazona both walked to push in runs, followed by a Navarro hit-by-pitch that also scored a run. Leitha added an RBI with a sacrifice fly and Mendazona scored on a wild pitch before the inning came to a close.
Now the winning pitcher, Hardwick allowed a leadoff walk, but struck out the next batter and got a double play to end the game.
GAME TWO
With just a short turnaround before game two, Hardwick immediately went back out and started the decisive third game of the series. The right-hander worked a scoreless first, before giving up a lone run in the second and giving way to
Peyton Hutson.
Hutson got the last out of the second, and his offense quickly got him the run back to tie the game in top of the third.
Then in the fourth inning, the Chaps took the lead. Donohoe led things off with a walk and got himself all the way to third with two great reads on balls in the dirt.
Edgar Hernandez drove him in with a sacrifice fly. Gordon followed with yet another solo home run – LCU's sixth of the day – to make the lead 3-1.
Donohoe drove in a run in the fifth and then both he and Leitha scored on a single by Hernandez to make the score 6-1, but Texas A&M-Kingsville tallied two runs of their own in the bottom of the fifth to stay in the game.
Cannon Davis came on for the Chaps to close out the inning and wound up with one of his best outings of the season, striking out four in three and a third innings of work.
Although LCU's hitters frequently came through in the clutch in the second game, they were also helped by five TAMUK errors. Two of those came in the seventh inning, when the Chaps added another two runs to push the gap back out to five.
The Javelinas scored on a groundout in the bottom of the seventh, but Lubbock Christian got it back on a home run from – you guessed it –
Larry Leitha – in the top of the ninth.
Leading by five, LCU brought in
Koi Carrillo to close out the game in the ninth. He gave up three hits to start the frame, which allowed the Javelinas to score. But a foul out calmed the nerves, and the righty followed up with two straight strikeouts to clinch the win.
INSIDE THE NUMBERS
60 | With seven home runs on the day (eight in the series overall) Lubbock Christian has now hit 60 this season.
Larry Leitha has 13 of those, which is the second-most in the conference, despite his number of plate appearances not qualifying him for the LSC leaderboard
.556 | Mason Donohoe was the team's leading hitter for the weekend, batting .556 in nine at-bats. He also walked twice for a .636 on-base percentage and scored five runs
23 | Luis Navarro caught another runner stealing in the bottom of the eight inning of the first game, increasing his league-leading season total to 23
.519 | TAMUK did a good job getting their leadoff batter aboard throughout the weekend. They reached in 14 of their 27 chances for a .519 on-base percentage
.313 | The Chaps hit .313 against the Javelina's right-handed pitchers this weekend and are now batting .306 against righties overall this year
NEXT UP
Lubbock Christian now advances to the second round of the LSC Championship, which is a double-elimination tournament featuring the four remaining teams. The Chaps will take on the No. 2 seed Angelo State, but the site is not determined yet. All of the games will be played at the highest remaining seed, but West Texas A&M and St. Edward's still have to play game three of their round one series. If the Buffs win, LCU will head to Canyon. If they lose, Angelo State will host the tournament.
