Baseball Sweeps UTA, Clinches Bye In SBC Championship

In Saturday’s victory, the maroon and gold jumped on top early and never looked back. The visitors plated two runs in both the first and second innings to secure an early 4-0 advantage.

ARLINGTON, Texas – The Texas State baseball team completed a sweep of UTA with an 8-2 victory in the regular-season finale Saturday afternoon at Clay Gould Ballpark.

The Bobcats (28-26-1, 16-14 SBC) earned their fifth-consecutive win against Sun Belt Conference opposition and picked up their first series sweep over their rivals in Arlington since 2007.

The Mavericks (21-33, 11-19 SBC) lost their 10th straight game and are now on their longest slide since 2011.

TXST ended the regular season second in the SBC West Division and will be the No. 6 seed in the 2018 Sun Belt Conference Championship.

The postseason tournament will be held May 22-27 in Lafayette, La. The Bobcats earned a bye past the single-elimination, opening-round portion of the tournament that will be contested between seeds 7-10.

Texas State will open play against No. 3 seed Troy at 4 p.m. May 23. Despite the loss, UTA locked up the No. 8 seed and will play No. 9 Arkansas State May 22.

In Saturday’s victory, the maroon and gold jumped on top early and never looked back. The visitors plated two runs in both the first and second innings to secure an early 4-0 advantage.

They then added a three-spot in the seventh and one more in the ninth. UTA answered with single tallies in both the sixth and ninth stanzas.

Seniors Derek Scheible and Mickey Scott, junior Jonathan Ortega and true freshman Dalton Shuffield all finished with two hits for the Bobcats.

Senior Luke Sherley and junior Jaylen Hubbard both added two-RBI triples, and Sherley scored twice. Scott and fellow senior Dylan Paul also scored two runs each.

Sophomore Zachary Leigh (3-3) earned his second-straight win on the mound after conceding just one run on six hits across 5.2 innings.

Junior Brayden Theriot sat down all four batters he faced, and redshirt freshman Alex Klitsas gave up one run on three hits in the final 2.0 frames.

RJ Williams led all batters with three hits on the day, while Josh Minjarez added two more in the losing effort. Reid Petty (1-4) suffered the loss on the mound after conceding four runs on five hits in the first 1.2 innings.

He struck out three and walked one. Jordon West allowed three runs on four hits in 5.1 frames of relief duty. He struck out six and did not issue a walk. The Mavericks utilized four more arms out of the bullpen.

The sweep for the Bobcats was their fourth overall and third against league opposition this season. They are also now guaranteed no worse than a .500 record.

TXST outhit UTA 11-9, and the Mavericks led in errors, 3-0. The Bobcats did not commit an error in the field all series. The last such occurrence came against Appalachian State March 16-18.

Score by Innings                    R  H  E

———————————————

Texas State……… 220 000 301 –  8 11  0

UTA…………….. 000 001 001 –  2  9  3

———————————————

Win – Leigh, Z. (3-3). Loss – Petty, R. (1-4). Save – None.