LUBBOCK, Texas (February 6, 2022) – The 2022 Lubbock Christian University baseball season finally opened on Sunday after a two-day delay for weather, and the Chaps split a doubleheader with Arkansas-Fort Smith to begin the season.
 
The two teams played one seven-inning game and one nine-inning affair. UAFS took the first game, going up by as many has six runs and just holding off an LCU rally to win 7-5. The Chaps took the nightcap, breaking the game open in the eighth for an 11-5 victory.
 
Both teams still have a chance to win the series heading into another doubleheader Monday.
 
GAME ONE
The wind was cold (blowing 20-30 mph in from right center field) and so were the Chaparral hitters to start the first game.
 
Logan Grant was tabbed as the game one starter for the Lions, and he pitched masterfully for the first four innings. The sophomore was perfect in that time, facing just 12 LCU batters and retiring them all.
 
Meanwhile, his offense went to work against Chap starter Tyler Hardwick. Hardwick worked out of a bases-loaded jam in the first inning and kept the Lions off the board again in the second, but they broke through for four runs in the third and added two more in the fifth before he was replaced by Koi Carrillo.
 
Lubbock Christian finally broke up the perfect game with a walk from Larry Leitha in the bottom of the fifth, and they ended up answering for the two runs the Lions had scored in the top half. Eduardo Acosta had the first Chap hit with a single up the middle, Cayde Ward walked in a run and Caden Hensley drove in the other with a groundout before the inning ended.
 
Carrillo gave up one run on a wind-aided homer in the top of the sixth, but LCU came back for three more in the bottom of the inning. This time, they all came on one swing of the bat, as Jarred Gibson tripled to clear the bases with two outs, and the Chaps pulled within two.
 
The Chaps nearly completed the comeback in the bottom of the seventh, loading the bases with two outs for Leitha, but his hard ground ball was fielded by the UAFS shortstop to turn a double play and end the game.
 
GAME TWO
The bats were alive now, though, and the Chaps got on the board early in the second game, pushing across a run on a Will Buchholz single in the first inning. They scored two more in the second on a single from Luis Navarro but still hadn't pulled away much because the Lions kept scoring too.
 
UAFS tallied a run in the second and another in the third, but still trailed the Chaps until the fifth inning. In the top of that frame, though, they scored three runs and see-sawed in front, but only briefly.
 
Carson Ogilvie drove in a run with a sac fly to tie the game in the bottom half, and the Chaps eased back in front on a wild pitch.
 
The one run would've been enough to win the game, thanks to stellar pitching by Brendan Anderson, but LCU tacked on insurance runs anyways. Anderson had come into the game in the fifth with the bases loaded and the three UAFS runs already in, but he escaped the jam with a strikeout and a lineout to Ogilvie, who leaped just high enough to pluck the ball out of the air. He ended up pitching 3.2 innings with just one hit and one walk allowed while striking out four in his LCU debut.
 
Lubbock Christian added one insurance run in the seventh on a George Mendazona single and then broke the game open with four more in the eighth. Cannon Davis closed out the win with a perfect ninth on the mound.
 
INSIDE THE NUMBERS
6 | Gibson reached base six times in eight plate appearances, collecting three hits, two walks and one hit by pitch
.449 | The Chaparrals collected 15 hits, 17 walks and three hit-by-pitches for a team on-base percentage of .449 on the first day of the season
.270 | The Lions were limited to a .270 batting average by the six Chap pitchers used on the day
 
NEXT UP
Lubbock Christian will wrap up the series with the Lions with an identical doubleheader on Monday, starting at 1 p.m.