FHSU Sports Information
After dropping a couple of one-run contests on Saturday to open its season, the FHSU baseball team took the final game of the three-game series at Texas A&M-International in Laredo, Texas on Sunday. The Tigers won 10-8, moving to 1-2 overall on the season.
Fort Hays State took a commanding 6-0 lead early through two and a half innings. FHSU scored four runs in the second, triggered on a solo home run by Cooper Langley. Horace Johnson followed with a double and later scored on an RBI by Gabe Cook, who reached by fielding error. Gus Strunk added an RBI single and Jordan Miller followed with a RBI double. In the third, the Tigers plated two more on a timely two-out two-RBI single by Strunk.
Texas A&M-International quickly pulled back into the game with four runs in the bottom of the third, two earned and two unearned. An error that should have produced the second out of the inning was followed by three consecutive singles, allowing the Dustdevils to trim the lead to two.
FHSU picked up one run in the fifth on a sacrifice bunt RBI by Jordan Miller, but TAMIU matched the run in the bottom half of the inning using a pair of doubles to generate a run, making it 7-5.
Nathan Zimmerman stopped the TAMIU rally in the fifth by getting the final two outs in relief of starter Tyler Patty, who went 4.1 innings with four strikeouts and 12 hits allowed. But he ran into trouble in the sixth after getting the first out. He surrendered a single and then a home run that tied the game at 7-7, then was responsible for the run that scored later on a single to give TAMIU its first lead of the game at 8-7.
Nick Hammeke got the final two outs of the sixth for the Tigers and proceeded to pitch scoreless a scoreless seventh to keep the TAMIU lead at one.
The Tigers rallied for three runs in the eighth to take the lead back 10-8. Jordan Miller singled to open the inning, then advanced on a sacrifice and stole third. Clayton Garland knocked him in with a sacrifice fly RBI. Horace Johnson pushed the Tigers back in front with a two-out RBI double and then Gabe Cook added his second RBI of the game later with a single.
Hammeke faced one batter in the eighth before Nathan Briar came in to close the door on the Dustdevils over the final two innings, earning a save and preserving a win for Hammeke. Briar allowed just one hit and struck out one. The strikeout ended the game.
Johnson, Cook, and Strunk all had three-hit games, all going 3-for-5 at the plate and combining for six RBI.
Fort Hays State opens conference play next weekend (Feb. 21-23) against Pittsburg State in a four-game series at Larks Park in Hays.