Wildcats rally for dramatic win over UCO

ACU scores three runs in bottom of ninth to take 12-11 victory

CLEVELAND, Miss. – It certainly wasn't the way ACU head coach Britt Bonneau would have scripted it beforehand, but he’ll definitely take the way Thursday's NCAA Division II South Central Region tournament game against Central Oklahoma ended.

The Wildcats (42-15) rallied for three runs in the bottom of the ninth for a dramatic 12-11 win over their Lone Star Conference rival. The win sends the Wildcats to Friday’s 3 p.m. winner’s bracket game where they will take on either Delta State or West Alabama. The game can be heard on KSLI 1280 AM. 

ACU and Central Oklahoma – champions of the LSC South Division and North Division, respectively – battled for more than three hours in a game that was destined to be decided in the late innings. Fortunately for the Wildcats, they were the home team, and they used their final at-bat to their advantage.

ACU's pitchers struggled all day – giving up 11 runs, 13 hits, six walks and five hit batters – and that struggle almost cost the Wildcats the game. The ballgame was tied at 9-9 going to the top of the ninth before the Bronchos scored twice to take an 11-9 lead. The inning was helped along by two hit batters and RBI singles by Beau Sullivan and Matt Yost.

Trailing 11-9 going to the bottom half of the inning, the Wildcats needed at least two runs to stay out of the loser’s bracket.

"Our attitude at that point was the same as it’s been all season, which was to just keep battling," Bonneau said. "I told our first two guys to get on base and see what happens. Then Central made a couple of errors that really hurt them, and then things started going our way."

Brenan Herrera and Joel Wells each reached base to lead off the bottom of the ninth, both reaching on throwing errors by shortstop Jake Mays. Herrera went to third and Wells to second when Mays' throw on Wells' ground ball sailed down the right field fence. With the tying runs in scoring position, pitcher Chad Ashley proceeded to throw eight straight balls, walking Johnny Zepeda to load the bases, and then forcing in a run with a walk to Ruben Rivera.

With Chris Walsh at the plate and the tying run at third in the former of pinch-runner Dan Gubbels, Ashley hit Walsh with a 1-0 pitch to bring in the game-tying run. That’s when Chris Elam came on in relief of Ashley, and, with the infield drawn in, got J-Bob Thomas to ground into a fielder's choice, cutting the winning run off at the plate. Thomas, hustling down the line, was safe at the bag on an attempted double play.

Then Dane Marcouiller – the No. 9 man in the Wildcats' lineup – cued a 1-2 pitch from Elam off the end of his bat out to second baseman Nick Thigpen. But Thigpen – playing in to again cut off the run – had trouble getting off a clean throw, and that allowed Rivera to slide across with the game-winning run.

The fielder’s choice RBI capped off an inning that saw the Wildcats score three runs without benefit of a hit or getting a ball out of the infield.

"That ninth inning was crazy," Bonneau said. "I've been on the other side of games like that, and it's a lot better to be on this side. Things started happening and we had the right guys coming to the plate."

ACU had the right guys at the plate early in the game as well as Brenan Herrera it a two-run home run in the first inning and Ryan Barker a three-run shot in the second to stake the Wildcats to an early 5-2 lead. Barker's home run chased starting pitcher Ryan Kaney, who entered the game with a 10-0 record and 2.30 ERA.

But UCO pitcher Brian Murphy came into the game and settled things down for the Bronchos, allowing just one run – a Zepeda solo home run in the fifth inning – over the next 4 2/3 innings. And that allowed the Bronchos to get back into the game against ACU starting pitcher Ben Maynard, who was uncharacteristically ineffective on Thursday.

The Bronchos got single runs in the first and second innings against Maynard, and then loaded the bases in the third thanks to back-to-back one-out walks. But Maynard got Yost to strike out looking, and then got Brandon Bacon swinging to end the inning.

After breezing through the fourth, Maynard again found trouble in the fifth, giving up two runs on a Sullivan home run, cutting the ACU lead to 5-4. After Zepeda's home run made it 6-4, the Bronchos answered back with a single run in the sixth on an RBI triple by Chad Fleming, making it 6-5. After Maynard got the second out of the inning, he hit Thigpen – his third hit batter of the afternoon – and that was all for Maynard, who was replaced by Justin Whitlock.

Whitlock immediately walked Jake Mays to load the bases, but then struck out Sullivan with an eye-high 3-2 fastball to keep the Wildcats’ lead at 6-5. But the Bronchos scored three times in the top of the seventh to take an 8-6 lead over the Wildcats with Bryan Belford getting an RBI single, Chad McGaugh an RBI single and Thigpen an RBI sacrifice fly.

"Our pitchers certainly weren't as sharp as we would like them to be," Bonneau said, "and maybe the long layoff (only one game since April 29) hurt them. But we're going to have to pitch better through the rest of this tournament is we want to get to the College World Series."

Just as they have done all season, the Wildcats battled back in the bottom of the seventh with three runs to regain a 9-8 advantage. Barker led off with a double, and then scored on a Wells single. After a Zepeda single moved Wells to second, he scored when Ashley – who had just entered the game in place of Murphy – threw a pickoff attempt over the head of Sullivan at first. With Zepeda at third, Rivera lifted a sacrifice fly to right field, driving in Zepeda, who beat the tag with a heads-up slide to the back side of the plate.

But the Bronchos wouldn't die, and they came out swinging in the eighth against Kade Simmons, ACU’s third pitcher of the day. Sullivan led off with a double, and then Blake Dean was hit by a 2-2 pitch. Yost then lined to Rivera, but his throw to second on the double-play attempt went into right field, allowing Sullivan to score the game-tying run. Simmons got out of it without any further damage, but then he gave up two runs in the ninth on back-to-back singles and a double.

But the Wildcats wouldn't fold, and their three-run bottom of the ninth gave them a walkoff victory and their fourth straight regional tournament victory.

"I hope a game like that will relax us and helps us pitch better and play better defense (Friday)," Bonneau said. "Right now we know that we're one win away from playing for a championship on Saturday, and that's what we set out to do when we came here. We've tried all year to just put ourselves in position to win, and we did that. And now we just need two wins to get back to the World Series."