DALLAS – The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Vaqueros baseball team scored five late runs to come from behind and beat the Dallas Baptist University Patriots, a team receiving votes in the latest
USA Today Coaches and NCBWA polls, 5-4 on Sunday at Horner Ballpark.
Down 3-0 in the sixth, postbaccalaureate student
Christian Sepulveda grounded into a fielder's choice to bring home graduate student
Conrado Diaz, making the score 3-1.
Diaz then came up with a two-out RBI-single to bring home junior Vela alum
RJ Ochoa in the seventh.
In the eighth, Ochoa hit a two-run double and then scored on a single by senior
Jacob Hirsh off of
Zane Russell (0-1) to make the score 5-3.
That made a winner of graduate student
Ricky Arevlo (1-0), who came on in the seventh with the bases loaded and one out and needed just three pitches to prevent the Patriots (14-7) from scoring by inducing a pair of fielder's choices.
Junior
Zach De Leon pitched the final two innings for his first-career save.
Diaz led the Vaqueros (12-12) offensively by going a season-high tying 3-for-5 with an RBI and a run scored. Ochoa finished 2-for-4 with a career-high tying two RBI and a career-high tying two runs scored. Graduate student
Andy Atwood drew a career-high tying three walks and scored a run.
The Patriots got on the board in the first on a
Cole Moore groundout and a two-out double by
Austin Bell.
Moore added an RBI-single in the fifth to make the score 3-0.
The Patriots tried to rally with two outs in the ninth, scoring on a
Jace Grady single and putting the tying run in scoring position before De Leon got Bell to pop out to end the game.
UTRGV plays 14 of its next 15 games at home, starting with a $2 Tuesday matchup against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi as part of the South Texas Showdown, presented by Navy Army Community Credit Union, at 6 p.m. at UTRGV Baseball Stadium. UTRGV Athletics is capping capacity at UTRGV Baseball Stadium at approximately 1,200 fans. Single-game tickets can be purchased online at
UTRGVTickets.com. For more information about game day, visit
GoUTRGV.com/game-day.
Fans can also watch for free online at
WACDigitalNetwork.com.
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