The St. Edward’s University baseball team drops both games in a two-game home set to Colorado State University Pueblo.
“You got to give those guys credit,” Head Coach Ryan Femath said. “They’re a well coached team. They came prepared, they had energy all the way through and did the little things better than we did.”
ThunderWolves starting pitcher, Cameron Saso, struggled mightily in the bottom of the first inning, allowing the first five Hilltopper hitters to reach safely before recording the first out. Joel Shea poked a two-run single to right field to score Dillon Flores and Lance Little for his first runs batted in of his Hilltopper career. Weston Symes drove in Davis Drewek on a sacrifice fly to make it 5-0 SEU after one inning.
The ThunderWolves bounced back in the top of the second inning with two runs after St. Edward’s starting pitcher, Luke Negrete, walked Kysen Howard and Jeremiah Sanchez back-to-back with one out. ThunderWolf catcher Jacob Arriola put his team on the board with a base hit to center field to score Howard, and a throwing error by Drewek allowed the runners to move up an extra base. Leadoff man Kade Snodgrass added another run with a run batted in (RBI) single to make it 5-2. The ThunderWolves would add runs in every inning over the next five. At the seventh inning stretch time, CSU Pueblo put up 10 unanswered runs and led 10-5.
SEU’s Ryan Feddersen pinch hit for second baseman Kyler Kerlin to lead off the bottom of the seventh with a walk. Two batters later, Connor Cox was plunked to put runners on first and second with one out. Little singled up the middle to score Jett Garcia, pinch runner for Feddersen. Flores walked to set the table for Drewek who belted a grand slam off the net protecting the adjacent neighborhood in right field knotting the game 10-10.
The score would stay that way until the top of the tenth inning when CSU Pueblo clean-up hitter Brad Stone crushed a solo blast over the right center field fence to give the ThunderWolves an 11-10 advantage. Little and Flores wasted no time responding by leading off the bottom of the 10th with a double and a single. Ty Murray pinch hit for an injured Drewek and came up huge for the Hilltoppers with an RBI single to score Little and tie up the game 11-11.
The Hilltoppers had chances to take the lead, but stranded the bases loaded to close out the eighth and ninth innings.
“Guys have got to step up in those types of situations,” Femath said. “Things like that will happen. We’ve got a deep enough roster where there needs to be other guys that step up.”
Hilltopper Kevin Skweres struck out the first two ThunderWolves hitters in top of the eleventh before Snodgrass would reach on a bloop single just out of the reach of a diving Garcia. CSU Pueblo’s Wyatt Reginato would get plunked, followed by Christian Castaneda being intentionally walked for the second time on the day after two solo home runs earlier in the game. ThunderWolf Logan Kelly, who entered the game as pinch runner for Reginato, would score on a wild pitch from Skweres to give the ThunderWolves a 12-11 lead for good.
The Hilltoppers drop to a 3-3 overall record. Lone Star Conference play resumes next weekend, with a series against West Texas A&M University from Feb. 16-18.
