ABILENE, Texas – Three runs in the eleventh inning gave the University of the Incarnate Word baseball team a 6-3 Southland Conference victory over archrival Abilene Christian on Friday night at Crutcher Scott Field in the first game of conference.

HOW IT HAPPENED

It was a close ballgame the entire night. The Wildcats (7-6, 0-1 SLC) jumped out ahead with a run in the first, and second inning. But, the Cardinals (10-6, 1-0 SLC) would respond right away. Mark Whitehead scored on a wild pitch, after getting on with a single and later stealing third—his tenth of the season—as part of a double steal. Then in the fourth, Sean Arnold drove in a run with his second triple of the season, and then scored on an RBI groundout by Whitehead to take a 3-2 lead.

UIW starting pitcher, Tyler Lesley, settled in nicely, putting up zeros in his last three innings of work. It wasn't until the seventh inning that ACU tied the game 3-3, with a Russell Crippen RBI single. But after that, the Cardinal bullpen shut them down. Tyler Miller and Lance Moszkowicz combined to keep the Wildcats scoreless for 4.0 innings, into the 11^th inning.

That gave the UIW offense time to do some damage, and it all came in the eleventh, with the big blow coming from Eddy Gonzalez, who came in as a sub in the 7^th inning. After a Ryan Gonzalez sac fly gave UIW a one-run lead, Eddy Gonzalez hit a two-run double to right field for two insurance runs.

Moszkowicz finished the bottom of the eleventh and stranded the bases loaded to give the Cardinals their first conference win of the year. He picked up the win, which now puts him at 2-0 on the season, while Brandon Lambright got tabbed with the loss.    

LEADERS

Eddy Gonzalez, Kyle Bergeron and Whitehead all collected two hits apiece for the Cardinals. Whitehead scored two runs and drove in one, and remained a perfect 10-for-10 in stolen base attempts. He is also currently on a 12 game hitting streak. UIW was outhit by the Wildcats 13-11, but ACU committed two errors, while the Cardinals played an
errorless 11 innings.

On the pitching side, the Cardinals had a strong evening. Lesley had a strong outing of 5.0 innings pitched, two runs allowed, walking three and striking out four in a no-decision.

For the Wildcats, Dalon Farkas and Aaron Draper each collected three hits, and Crippen had two of the three RBI.

UP NEXT

The Cardinals will continue with the three-game series with game two Saturday. Game time has been changed to 1 p.m., due to rain and the probable pitchers are Bernie Martinez (2-0, 0.49) for UIW, and Case Rolen, (1-0, 4.38). Martinez will try to follow up the best outing for any Cardinal pitcher when he threw a complete game shutout against Omaha last weekend.

STAY TUNED

Following the weekend series, the Cardinals will host Central Arkansas for a three-game Southland Conference series at Sullivan Field next weekend.

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