STEPHENVILLE – With Tarleton State trailing Cameron 5-3 and down to its final two outs, head coach
Bryan Conger made a call to his bench for a late-game spark.
Brandon Villeneuve came in to pinch-hit with runners at first and second and delivered by driving an opposite-field walk-off three-run home run to give the Texans a dramatic 6-5 win over Cameron Friday evening at Cecil Ballow Complex.
Offensively, the Texans (8-6, 2-2 in Lone Star Conference play) started as hot as they finished. Center fielder
Kevin Meredith pounded a lead-off home run to right field to give the Texans the early lead. The senior from Manor now has a team-leading 15 RBIs after his second home run of the season.
The home run was the start of four first-inning hits for the Texans, leading to two more runs and a 3-0 lead over the visiting Aggies.
Dalton Weeks followed Meredith with a single to left field. Weeks later stole second and advanced to third on an Aggie throwing error.
Jonathan Schmitz and
Landon Thompson provided the other pair of singles, with Thompson's resulting in his first RBI of the season.
The next seven innings, however, Tarleton State found themselves in an offensive slump, scattering only three hits – all singles – during those frames.
Tarleton State starter
Matt Herrick (2-1, 6.53 ERA) relied on his strikeout pitch to get himself out of two-out jams. Herrick punched out six Cameron batters and gave the Texans four innings on the mound while surrendering five runs (four earned) in the no-decision.
After a rocky top half of the second inning that ended in Cameron answering with three runs of their own, Herrick came out in the third and struck out the side. It was a stretch of four straight strikeouts for the sophomore right-hander from Haslet.
Cameron (7-12, 1-7 in LSC) produced a pair of runs in the fourth inning for a 5-3 lead.
The Aggies looked primed to pick up a rare win against Tarleton State before the ninth inning collapse. With the win, the Texans improve to 40-10 all-time against Cameron.
While the Tarleton offense was looking for answers against Cameron starter Codey Upton, the Aggies looked puzzled all afternoon against the Texans' bullpen.
Troyal Yosko came in for Herrick in the fifth inning to toss four shutout innings and kept the Texans in position for its late-game heroics.
Yosko made his fifth relief appearance for the Texans and avoided any serious scoring threats until the eighth inning when the Aggies had runners at second and third with two outs. Cameron's Nate Hale lined a single to left field, but a base running blunder ended with Justin Winters being thrown at third on the cut-off throw and got the Texans out of a potential bases loaded situation to end the inning.
John Kresta picked up his first win of the season for the Texans with a scoreless ninth inning.
Tarleton State has now won two games in a row in Lone Star Conference play after dropping its first two conference games.
The Texans and Aggies will meet tomorrow for a doubleheader at Cecil Ballow Complex starting at 4 p.m. The final game of the series will be Sunday at 1 p.m
