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Buffs Sweep Tarleton back to Stephenville
April 22, 2006
The West Texas A&M University baseball team completed a four game sweep of the Tarleton State University Texans, with a pair of wins on Saturday afternoon under sunny skies. The Buffs notched a 10-4 win in the first game before turning in a 4-3 victory to complete the sweep of the Texans. The team improves its record to 24-25 on the season and 9-7 in conference play.
The Buffs jumped out to an early lead over the Texans in the afternoon's first game, taking advantage of a Tarleton error in the home half of the first inning, scoring a run on a sacrifice fly by sophomore designated hitter Brady Ribinskas that scored sophomore center fielder Justin Graham, who reached on an error by Texans shortstop Ryan Howard. WTAMU added a run in the second and launched an all out offensive assault on Tarleton's starting pitcher Todd Westerfeld, ringing up six runs and sending eleven batters to the plate in the third frame.
Freshman starting pitcher Ruben Batista threw 8.2 innings in the Buffs' victory, including six shutout innings, and gave up only three earned runs. Batista sat down the side in order in four of those innings and faced only four batters in the other two before facing five hitters in the seventh inning when the Texans scored their first run. Sophomore third baseman Brian Schupp was 2-3 at the plate with two RBI and a sacrifice fly while sophomore left fielder Josh McCreary added two more RBI in a 2-4 effort. Each batter in the Buffs' lineup had at least one hit in the game and six players recorded at least one RBI.
After falling behind 2-0 in the top of the first, the Buffs rallied in the fourth inning with a two-out, three-run shot by junior second baseman Matt Ray to take the lead, thanks in part to two consecutive hit batsmen by Tarleton ace Jeremy Roberts. The deciding run, however was scored in the home half of the sixth on a clutch double from sophomore catcher Caleb Palmer that scored junior left fielder Cody Dean from third and proved to be the winning run when the Texans answered with a run of their own in the seventh frame. Ray was 2-3 with three RBI with Palmer and Dean accounting for the Buff's only other hits against Roberts. Senior starter Ben Prewitt hurled five innings, giving up four runs and two hits, both of them unearned.
WTAMU finishes the regular season with a four game series against LSC South division leaders, Abilene Christian University at Abilene, Texas next weekend, April 28-29.
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