STEPHENVILLE, Texas — The University of Colorado Colorado Springs baseball team went south for their second road series of the season to take on Tarleton State University. Saturday represented games one and two of the series as the Mountain Lions dropped both games to TSU.
In game one, UCCS and TSU traded blows in a game that ended in a 9-8 Tarleton win.
UCCS was carrying an early 3-1 lead after Matt Berg recorded two RBI in the first two innings with an RBI double in the first, and a fielder's choice in the second that scored Walker Rumsey. John Mallon added an RBI in the first inning as well, with his first triple of the season.
Tarleton answered with one run in the first and two runs in the second as a solo home run and an error in the field brought the game even, 3-3.
Evan Richards came on strong to rip an RBI single through the right side in the third inning to retake the lead 4-3. But Tarleton came back in the bottom half of the third with a two-run home run to take a 5-4 lead into the fourth. After TSU scored their sixth run of the game in the bottom of the fourth, Richards followed things up by sending his second hit of the game deep to shorten the TSU lead 6-5.
The bats came alive for Tarleton in the sixth inning as the Texans tacked on three more runs off of two doubles, a single, and an error to increase their lead 9-5.
The Mountain Lions would make things interesting in the top half of the seventh as Richards drew a walk to start the inning. A strikeout gave UCCS their first out, but not until after Richards stole second to get into scoring range. Cody Norton stepped in next to draw a second walk in the inning and place runners on first and second. Another strikeout made the second out as the Mountain Lions were in their final life with Tyler Matheny making a pinch hit appearance. Dave Hajek's move paid off as Matheny singled to center to bring Richards around and put runners on first and third, with McDermott coming up to bat. McDermott then brought the game within one run as he found the gap with a two-RBI triple to make the score 9-8.
The Mountain Lions' rally ended there as Jonathan Cowles received the loss to move to 0-4 on the season. Berg, Richards, and Matt Clarke each had two RBI as they combined for six of the 11 hits in the top half of the lineup.
In game two, it was all Tarleton State as UCCS had a hard time taking care of the ball, committing four errors in the 10-0 loss.
The Texans out-hit UCCS 11-4 scoring 10 runs off of 11 hits as Joe Slocum received the loss to move to 1-1 on the season. On top of the four errors, there was a combined six walks from the UCCS pitching staff which didn't help as Tarleton's situational hitting was consistent through the game.
UCCS left six runners on base in game two as TSU scored one run in the first, second and third innings, while tacking on two in the fifth and five in the sixth.
The series will come to a close on Sunday as the Mountain Lions and Texans will play in another 7-inning doubleheader with game one set for 10 a.m. first pitch.
