RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Tarleton baseball picked up its first Western Athletic Conference series victory of the season as they took down California Baptist 7-4 on Saturday evening to take the 2-0 series lead.
The Texans (17-15, 3-9 WAC) earned their first WAC road series win dating back to March 2022 when they took two games from Abilene Christian. Tarleton was outhit 10-5 by CBU (17-18, 9-8 WAC) but used timely hits and benefitted from walks and three Lancer errors.
Zane Badmaev (W, 1-2) was stellar out of the bullpen, tossing 3.0 shutout innings allowing just one hit, striking out five and walking none.
He entered in relief of starter
Dylan Delvecchio who had his best outing of conference play. He threw 6.0 innings, allowing four runs on nine hits. He struck out four and walked two, battling through the tough CBU lineup.
Offensively, Tarleton scored its runs in back-to-back innings. Three runs in the sixth and four in the seventh was what Tarleton produced, taking its first lead of the game in the seventh inning.
Down 3-0 entering the sixth, Tarleton plated three runs on three hits and two CBU errors to tie the game.
Mason Crews got the Texans on the board with an RBI double, scoring
Kooper Shook from second who reached on an error.
Jordan Andrade sent a ball up the middle in the next at bat, scoring Crews and making it 3-2. The third run came on an RBI groundout to the first baseman by
Cris Enriquez, scoring Andrade.
CBU plated a run in the bottom of the sixth on a sacrifice fly, re-taking the lead 4-3.
Tarleton continued to fight as they batted through their lineup in the seventh inning, plating four runs on one hit and one error. The Texans used restraint, with four walks in the inning helping to keep the bases full.
Mason Hammonds walked with the bases loaded to tie the game at four.
Trace Morrison ripped a two-run single down the left field line to score two and give the Texans their first lead of the game at 6-4. Enriquez came through with another infield groundout RBI to make it 7-4. The Lancers used five pitchers in the seventh inning.
Morrison was the lone Texan with multiple hits as he finished with two hits and two RBI.
Tarleton will go for the series sweep tomorrow, with first pitch in Riverside set for 1 p.m. CT. The game will be streamed on ESPN+.
