HOUSTON – The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Vaqueros baseball team hit three home runs but fell to the University of Houston Cougars 16-10 in game one of a doubleheader on Sunday at Schroeder Park.
The Vaqueros (5-1) and Cougars (3-3) start game two at approximately 5:40 p.m. on
ESPN+.
The Vaqueros have now hit eight home runs in six games, their best total since 2018, when they also had eight home runs at this point in the season.
On the sixth pitch of the game, junior
Brandon Pimentel launched a solo shot to right, his third home run of the season, to put the Vaqueros up 1-0.
Graduate student
Bryan Sturges belted a two-run shot to center in the second, his first of the season and the 10
th of his career, to put the Vaqueros up 4-0.
Graduate student
Freddy Rojas Jr. then broke a 4-4 tie in the fourth with a three-run blast to right, his first of the season and the 11
th of his career, to put the Vaqueros up 7-4.
Rojas and Pimentel each finished a career-high tying 3-for-5. Rojas added a double, a season-high three RBI and a career-high tying three runs scored. Pimentel scored twice. Sophomore PSJA alum
Jacob Sanchez went a career-high tying 2-for-4 with a double and a run scored. Sophomore
Alex Kelch doubled in each of his two at-bats during his third multi-hit and first multi-double game.
The Vaqueros also scored on a pair of sacrifice flies by junior
Diego Ramirez, one in the first and one in the sixth, an RBI-groundout by graduate student
Cameron Blake in the sixth, and an error that scored sophomore
Spencer Serven, who had previously tripled, in the ninth.
The Vaqueros led 9-4 in the bottom of the sixth. With two outs, though,
Zach Arnold hit a two-run home run to bring the Cougars within three.
Then, in the seventh, the Cougars put two on with one out, setting up a two-run triple by
Malachi Lott.
Brandon Uhse followed with an RBI-double and then Arnold and
Ryan Hernandez hit RBI-singles off graduate student
Max Balderrama Jr. (1-1) to give the Cougars an 11-9 lead.
That made a winner of
Maddux Miller (1-0), who pitched 1.1 innings of perfect relief.
Derrick Cherry pitched the final two innings for his first save.
The Cougars added five runs in the eighth on an error, a two-run single by
Cameron Nickens, and RBI-singles by
Samuel Tormos and
Anthony Tulimero.
Down 4-0, the Cougars scored three times with two outs in the second as, with the bases loaded, Lott and Uhse walked, and Arnold was plunked.
The Cougars tied the game in the third on a two-out RBI-single by
Ian McMillan.
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