LAKE CHARLES – Senior catcher
Cameron Toole darted home for the game-winning run in the ninth-inning on a wild pitch lifting the McNeese baseball team to a 4-3 win and Southland Conference series sweep over Abilene Christian Saturday afternoon at Cowboy Diamond.
With the game knotted at three heading to the bottom of the ninth, Toole scored the game-winning run on a Nick Palacios wild pitch scoring from third base. Toole got the stanza going with a triple deep to right field with two outs. On the next play, Palacios' offering missed the catcher and allowed Toole to safely slide into home and into the hands of his teammates, who met him with celebration as the Cowboys enjoyed their first sweep on the season.
"We have been fighting and swinging away and playing away," said McNeese head coach
Justin Hill. "You're going to keep having those situations until you finally come through and when you do things – like I told our guys who do the little things right – that when you take care of the little things then the big things take care of themselves."
The Cowboys (13-9, 6-3 SLC) have now swept 10 regular season series and six conference series under the direction of Hill. It is their first SLC series sweep since doing so against Stephen F. Austin back in May of last year.
Collin Kober (1-0) picked up the win in relief allowing no runs and one hit with six strikeouts in 4.2 innings. For Kober, it was the seventh win of his three-year career. Starter
Bryan King gave up a pair of runs on five hits with a walk and four punch outs in 3.1 innings of work.
Trailing 3-2 in the eighth, senior
Lewis Guilbeau laced an RBI single up the middle pulling the Pokes even in the contest.
Jacob Stracner led off the frame with a left field single and following a pitching change, the Wildcats retired the next two batters. With Stracner at second due to a stolen base, Guilbeau swung on the first offering and looked on as the tying run scraped across the plate.
Abilene Christian jumped out to an early lead with a run in the first while the Cowboys tied things up in the bottom of the third inning with a sacrifice bunt from
Ricky Ramirez. The Wildcats regained the lead with runs in the next two innings.
Senior
Connor Crane's fourth home run of the year help pull McNeese to within one of ACU after launching a sixth-inning dinger that sailed over the left field wall.
McNeese banged out nine hits getting two base knocks apiece from Guilbeau and junior
Will Fox. In all, seven Pokes recorded a hit while three different batters drove in a run.
The Cowboys will be back in action on Wednesday with a mid-week road contest at Louisiana Tech with first pitch slated for p.m. before returning home for a three-game conference series against Northwestern State.
McNeese 4, Abilene Christian 3 (Mar 26, 2016 at Lake Charles, La.)
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Abilene Christian... 100 110 000 - 3 10 0 (9-14, 2-7 SLC)
McNeese............. 001 001 011 - 4 9 0 (13-9, 6-3 SLC)
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Pitchers: Abilene Christian - Aaron Mason; Brandon Lambright(8); Joseph Goetze(8);
Nick Palacios(8) and Alex Copeland. McNeese - King, Bryan; Rider, Zach(4); Kober, Collin(5) and
Toole, Cameron.
Win-Kober, Collin(1-0) Loss-Nick Palacios(0-2) T-2:51 A-817
HR MCN - Crane, Connor (4).
Weather: 76; Partly Sunny; Wind: 5 SSE
B. Lambright faced 1 batter in the 8th.
