By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay
Cole Cramer’s one-out sacrifice fly to right field scored Jack Arthur from third base in the bottom of the ninth Tuesday night, lifting the TCU Horned Frogs to a 5-4 victory over the UTSA Roadrunners in Fort Worth.
TCU righthander Cohen Feser (1-0) from San Antonio earned the victory with three innings of scoreless relief. In the top of the ninth, Feser retired three straight batters to give the Horned Frogs a chance to win it in their last at bat.
On the third out of the inning, UTSA’s Mason Lytle hit it hard to left field, but the ball was knocked down by the wind and caught just inside the warning track.
The Horned Frogs opened the bottom half against a new pitcher, Zach Royse, UTSA’s regular Friday night starter. Karson Bowen led off with a drive to right that got over the head of outfielder James Taussig for a double.
After Arthur entered the game as a pinch runner, Royse struck out Isaac Cadena for the first out.
Then, with Cramer at the plate, Royse appeared to surprise UTSA catcher Andrew Stucky with his location on a pitch that caromed off Stucky’s mitt for a passed ball, allowing Arthur to take third.
Cramer followed by sending a fly ball to deep right that allowed Arthur to score, ending the Roadrunners’ six-game winning streak.
For UTSA, it was a missed opportunity in its effort to win road games this season at Texas A&M, Texas and TCU. The Horned Frogs entered the night rated 33rd on the RPI, with UTSA at No. 41, a season-high.
The Roadrunners’ offense wasn’t great. Horned Frogs pitching held them to eight hits, all singles. But UTSA pitching for the most part threw the ball well, save for five walks that gave the Horned Frogs too many chances.
Six hurlers, including Gunnar Brown, Jake Cothran, Connor Kelley, Christian Okerholm, Robert Orloski and Royse, held the Frogs to 10 hits. Royse (2-4) took the loss.
TCU used six pitchers, as well, including Trever Baumler, San Antonio’s Mason Bixby, Kaden Smith, Zack James, Gianluca Shinn and Feser, a 6-foot-2 redshirt junior from Reagan High School.
Bixby, a 6-7 sophomore from Johnson, pitched two innings and allowed one run on two hits. TCU shortstop Anthony Silva, a junior from Clark, went one for three at the plate and scored a run. He had four infield assists, a key putout and a throwing error.
Bowen and Cadena both went two for five for the Horned Frogs. Cadena slammed a solo homer and a double.
For UTSA, Norris McClure had three of UTSA’s eight hits. The transfer from Division II Spring Hill College in Alabama went three for four and scored a run.
After TCU opened the scoring with three runs in the second, the Roadrunners got one back in the third and then scored three in the fifth to take a 4-3 lead.
During the uprising, UTSA had runners at first and second with nobody out when Bowen, TCU’s catcher, fired to second to pick off McClure. It appeared that McClure beat the initial tag attempt by Silva, only to be tagged again when his momentum carried him off the bag.
Without the perfect throw from Bowen and the heads-up tag by Silva, the Roadrunners might have scored more than three runs and could have had a multiple-run lead.
Instead, the Roadrunners had to settle for the one-run margin going into the bottom of the fifth, and that is when Cadena greeted Kelley with a leadoff shot to right that carried well over the wall, tying the score, 4-4.
Records
UTSA 23-8
TCU 22-8
Coming up
UTSA at UAB, Friday, 5 p.m.
UTSA at UAB, Saturday, 2 p.m.
UTSA at UAB, Sunday, 1 p.m.