The Eastern New Mexico baseball team strung together a late rally, going ahead in the eighth inning on Ryan Anderson’s two RBI single and senior pitcher Cesar Capellan closed the door on Tarleton State in the ninth to propel the Hounds to a 9-8 win in their home game of the season on Sunday.
Pitching in his final game on Greyhound Field, Capellan picked up his first win of the season on Senior Day after throw 2.2 innings of relief and giving up four runs with only one earned on one hit, one walk and a pair of strikeouts.
With the win, the Hounds (15-29, 3-17 Lone Star Conference) battled back from two games down against the Texans (14-32, 4-16 LSC) to take the final two games to salvage a split in the series.
Prior to the start of the contest, Eastern honored its 11 graduating seniors: Paul Tapia, Elijah Cappello, Malcolm Boehm, Nicholas Ankerman, Michael Holliday, Eurick Perez, Chris Padilla, Enrique Perez, Connor Reece, Marc Vega, and Capellan.
Tarleton State put together the first major threat of the ballgame as the first three batters reached in the top of the second on a pair of singles and a walk to load the bases with no outs. However, ENMU starting pitcher Fernando Burgos was able to limit the damage by getting TSU’s John Law to ground into a 4-3 double play as Ankerman was able to tag out Blake Burns trying to advance to second and throw out Law at first as well as get TSU starting shortstop Sam Scarborough to flyout to right to limit the Texans to just one run.
The Greyhounds got the run back in the bottom half of the frame as Eurick Perez led off by smashing a double to the left center field gap and came around to score three batters later on Tristan Bowden’s single through the left side to lock the game up at 1-all.
The Hounds took their first lead of the ballgame in the third as Boehm was able to drop a high-hopping infield single in-between the shortstop and third baseman to score Ankerman from third, giving Eastern the 2-1 edge.
Eastern added some big time insurance in the fifth inning by plating three runs in the frame to stretch its lead to four. Ankerman led off the inning with a triple to one of the deepest parts of center field and came across home plate two batters later on Joel Paulino’s RBI double to left center to make it a 3-1 game.
In the following at-bat, Boehm drove a double to the right center field gap to plate Paulino to stretch the ENMU edge to 4-1. The Greyhounds added one more for good measure in Perez’s at-bat, as he was able to reach on an infield single to Scarborough, but the TSU shortstop threw the ball away trying to make the out at first, allowing Boehm to score and make it a 5-1 ballgame.
The Texans mounted a rally with three unanswered runs on a pair of sac flies and a passed ball in the sixth and seventh innings to close the gap to 5-4.
The Greyhounds built their lead back up to three in the bottom half of the seventh as Malcolm Smith drove a two-out single to center, plating Anderson and Perez to make it a 7-4 ballgame.
However, the Texans mounted a big inning in the top of the eighth by taking advantage of three ENMU errors to score four runs and grabbing the 8-7 edge.
Eastern continued to fight back in the bottom of the eighth as the Hounds were able to get the first two batters aboard on a Tapia walk and a perfectly placed Paulino bunt single down the third base line. After Boehm’s sac bunt moved the runners to scoring position, Perez drew a walk to load the bases with just one out.
Law, who moved from third to pitcher was able to strikeout Padilla for the second out, but Anderson was able to deliver the game-deciding hit with a single up the middle to score Tapia and Paulino to reclaim the 9-8 edge.
The Texans were able to get the game-tying run into scoring position in the top of the ninth as Scarborough advanced to second on a wild pitch with one out. However, Capellan closed out the game with a strikeout of TSU pinch hitter Abel Osoria and Padilla recorded the final putout on a lineout to left to give Eastern a win in its final home game of 2019.
The Greyhounds recorded their nine runs on 13 hits and made three errors while the Texans tallied their eight runs on nine hits and committed four errors.
Five Hounds recorded multiple hits in the contest, including seniors Eurick Perez, who went 2-for-3 with a pair of walks and a pair of runs, Boehm who slashed 2-for-4 with two RBIs and a run, and Ankerman who went 2-for-3 with a walk and two runs.
Paulino was also able to slash 2-for-3 with a pair of runs and an RBI while Bowden batted 2-for-3 with an RBI.
Despite not getting a decision in the contest, Burgos put together another strong start on the mound, throwing 5.2 innings and giving up just two earned runs on four hits and six walks.
With the victory, the Greyhounds moved back to within a game of the Texans for the sixth and final spot of the Lone Star Conference Tournament with four games left to play.
Eastern will wrap up the regular season on the road with a four-game series at Texas A&M-Kingsville next weekend. The Hounds will open the series on Friday, May 3 with a 5 p.m. first pitch.