STEPHENVILLE – Capitalizing with runners on was the difference between Tarleton and Texas A&M-Kingsville Friday night as the TexAnns fell to the Javelinas 9-3 in the series opener.
Tarleton stranded 13 base runners over the course of the game.
“We have to be able to push runs across when given the opportunity and we didn’t do that tonight,” said head coach Mark Cumpian. “We put some good at bats together in the seventh, but we just ran out of time. Hopefully we can carry the momentum of what we did late into tomorrow’s game and have a different result.”
Kingsville got the scoring started with one in the third when a leadoff walk came in to score on an infield single with the bases loaded, but Tarleton quickly answered with two of their own in the ensuing half inning.
With one out and the bases loaded, a wild pitch and an error on the catch allowed Maddie Quintanar and Meghann Wrinkle to cross the plate for Tarleton’s only runs of the contest. Meanwhile, Kingsville answered with two in the fourth and a six spot in the sixth to pull away for their final runs of the game.
In the bottom of the seventh, Kaitlyn Thomas sparked a brief two-out rally with a pinch-hit single to shortstop. Megan Durante and Kadyn Kirkpatrick followed up with singles of their own to load the bases for Marisa Flores, who plated the game’s final run with an RBI walk before a grounder to third ended the game.
Quintanar and Wrinkle each had two hits on the day while Savannah Stech, Thomas, Durante, Kirkpatrick, and Flores had one each. Jordan Withrow took the loss with 5.1 innings of work, over which allowed five runs on six hits and six walks. Kayleigh Williams pitched the final 1.2 innings, allowing one unearned run on two hits and a pair of strikeouts.
The series will resume tomorrow with a 1 p.m. doubleheader.
Be the first to comment