The Pioneer baseball team scored two runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to complete a doubleheader sweep over the University of the Southwest in its home opener Tuesday at Wilder Field.
Todd Jeffress' RBI single through the left side of the infield scored
Michael Prell to give WBU the 12-11 victory in the nightcap. In the first game,
Eddie Allen and
Josh Lucas combined to go five for five with six RBI in the 9-4 win.
Brett Cook's one out double in the final at-bat of the second game started the comeback rolling for the Pioneers, which fell behind when USW hit two home runs in the top half of the inning to pull ahead 11-10. Cook crossed the plate with the tying run on Prell's single. After the Mustangs intentionally walked Josh Lucas, Jeffress came through with the game-winner on a 3-2 pitch.
USW jumped out to an early lead, scoring six runs in the top of the first. The Pioneers responded with two in the bottom of the inning on Cook's single, a double by Prell down the left field line, an RBI single by Franky Busani and a sacrifice fly off the bat of Keith Martin.
Cook made it 6-4 with a solo homer in the second. The Mustangs scored two more in the third to jump out 8-4, but Martin's first homer of the year, a towering shot over the fence in right field, narrowed the margin to three.
The Pioneers took the lead with five runs in the fourth on five consecutive hits with one out. Sophomore pitcher Marcus Limon, who took the mound in the fourth, shut out the visitors in his three innings of work, striking out eight. The Estacado High graduate has a total of 18 punch outs in his last seven innings of work over the past two games.
Todd Weldon, who pitched the seventh for Wayland, picked up his third win of the season in the second game. Martin recorded three RBI, and Cook was a perfect 4-for-4 with the homer and a double.
Reliever Brett Swett got the win in game one after relieving starter Jason Kimzey in the fourth. The junior from Riddle, Oreg. pitched 2-and-2/3 innings of one hit ball. Freshman Ryan Stuck threw the seventh, striking out two.
Lucas went two-for-two in the opener with a home run and four RBI. Limon, the designated hitter in the game, went 3-for-4, and freshman catcher Oscar Rivera had two hits and a walk in his only three plate appearances.
The Pioneers had a 4-2 lead in the game, but USW tied it up in the fourth on third baseman Ysidro Reyna's two-run double. Wayland responded with three runs in the home half of the inning, then added two insurance runs in the fifth off the bats of Allen and Lucas.
Wayland returns briefly to the road on Friday with two games in Portales against Eastern New Mexico University, and then comes back home for three dates next week, beginning with a double-dipper on Sunday against ENMU.
