RIO GRANDE VALLEY – Graduate student
Elijah Alexander bunted home the winning run in the ninth to send The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Vaqueros baseball team past the California Baptist University Lancers, a team receiving votes in the latest NCBWA poll, 4-3 on Saturday at UTRGV Baseball Stadium.
With the score tied at 3, postbaccalaureate student
Christian Sepulveda led off with a double against
Jacob McCarvel (2-1). After a sacrifice bunt moved Sepulveda to third, Alexander sent a bunt to the third base side of the mound with Sepulveda coming home. Sepulveda slid in below the tag to end the game.
That made a winner of senior
Chase Bridges (2-1), who recorded the final two outs.
The Vaqueros (13-15, 5-7 WAC) broke a scoreless tie in the fifth. Sepulveda led off with a bunt single. Junior
DeAndre' Shelton and freshman
Spencer Serven both followed with sacrifice bunts that were thrown away, the latter of which led to Sepulveda scoring. After graduate student
Coleman Grubbs got plunked to load the bases, graduate student
Conrado Diaz lifted a fly ball to center that was dropped, bringing home Shelton. One batter later, junior
Freddy Rojas Jr. came up with a sacrifice fly to make the score 3-0.
Sepulveda finished 3-for-4.
Sophomore
J.C. Ariza started and pitched a career-high 6.2 innings, allowing two runs on seven hits without a walk while striking out three.
After allowing two hits to the first six batters, Ariza retired 11 in a row. The Lancers (18-7, 11-1 WAC) broke through in the seventh, as with a runner at third and two outs,
Harrison Spohn doubled and then
Connor Clift singled to make the score 3-2.
The Lancers tied the game in the ninth on a two-out error that scored
Chad Castillo.
UTRGV is back in action on $2 Tuesday at 6 p.m. against Texas State at UTRGV Baseball Stadium. UTRGV Athletics is capping capacity at UTRGV Baseball Stadium at approximately 1,200 fans. A limited number of tickets remain available. 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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