SACRAMENTO — Tarleton State Baseball clinched the outright WAC regular season championship with the Texans' 15-4 win at Sacramento State on Friday.
The Texans improved to 12-5 in WAC play and 34-18 overall with the win, evening the three-game series at the Hornets (25-30, 9-8 WAC).
Tarleton State has locked up the No. 1 seed in the WAC Tournament, and will open up conference tournament action on Thursday in the quarterfinals. The Texans' regular season title is their first regular-season championship in their D1 era and their second conference regular season title in their NCAA era (2013, Lone Star Conference).
Also, with the win, the Texans have posted their most road wins in a season in their D1 era. Currently 14-7 on the road with one road game left, the Texans hadn't won 14 road games in a season since 2012 (16-10).
Tarleton State wasted no time setting the tone offensively, exploding for six runs in the third inning and never looking back in a dominant road performance at John Smith Field.
After Sacramento State scratched across a run in the fourth, the Texans responded immediately and then delivered their biggest blow in the fifth inning, putting up a seven-run frame highlighted by a grand slam from Cage McCloud and a steady stream of traffic on the bases.
Rayner Heinrich and Carson Lorch both added home runs in the early innings, helping stretch the lead as Tarleton State built a commanding cushion. Jake Tatom and Heinrich each added extra-base hits, with the Texans finishing with 17 hits as a team.
Sacramento State's offense was limited for most of the night outside of a fourth-inning home run and a pair of late runs, as Tarleton State's pitching staff worked through multiple arms to close out the win.
On the mound, Ethan Wendel (5-3) got the start and earned the win after 4.0 innings, allowing 4 hits and 2 runs (2 earned) while striking out 2. The bullpen followed with a steady mix of arms, as Conner Doucet worked 1.0 inning with 1 hit and 2 runs allowed, Jackson Elizondo threw a scoreless inning with no hits allowed, and Tai Phetluangsy also added a clean inning out of the pen.
Tarleton State will now look to close out the series Saturday at 3 p.m. CT at Sacramento State before turning its attention to postseason play as the outright WAC champions and No. 1 seed.
