Hounds bounce back with sweep of Cowboys

LAS VEGAS, N.M. — After one of the all-time collapses the day before, Eastern New Mexico University's baseball team did a complete about-face on Saturday.

After blowing a 15-0 lead in a 22-16 loss to New Mexico Highlands on Friday, the Greyhounds made two much smaller leads stand up with stout relief pitching in a 5-2, 6-5 sweep of the Cowboys, improving to 6-1 for the season. Both games were seven innings.

The teams finish off the four-game set with a nine-inning contest at noon today.

Right-hander Ryan Pruitt (1-0) retired 12 of 13 batters in the nightcap after relieveing starter Ryan Boydstun with two on, no one out and the Hounds trailing 5-4 in the bottom of the fourth. He escaped that jam, then allowed only Chris Pyle's two-out double in the fifth the rest of the way.

In the opener, junior right-hander Kyle Kesmarki earned his second save with 1 2/3 innings behind starter Ben Monticello (1-0).

Meantime, junior second baseman Colton Sims continued his blazing start, going 2-for-3 in both games to make him 14-for-21 (.667) this season. Sims drove in three runs in the second game, including a game-tying RBI double in the sixth.

Brooke Brooks then scored later in the inning when senior Luis Quinones, making his season debut, reached on a two-out error.

Creamer went 4-for-6 for the day and is hitting .615 (16-for-26) while Crenshaw was 3-for-8 in the two games and stands at .600 (12-for-20).

Shortstop Brett Ackerman went 3-for-4 in the nightcap for the Hounds, who outhit the Cowboys 12-6.

After striking out the first two hitters in the opener, Highlands right-hander Greg Hansen (0-1) hit Daniel Binz with a pitch and walked Creamer before Crenshaw hit his first homer of the season over the left field fence to give ENMU a quick lead. In the third, Sims hit an infield single, Binz ripped an RBI double to right-center and Creamer added a run-scoring single up the middle to make it 5-0.

The Cowboys (1-2) got a sacrifice fly from Jordan Chavez in the fifth, and Josh McMahon greeted Kesmarki with a one-out, run-scoring double in the sixth. Kesmarki then loaded the bases with a hit batsman and an infield single, but induced Chavez to hit into a pop-fly double play, with Binz catching the ball behind first and throwing out McMahon trying to score from third.

Kesmarki issued a two-out walk in the seventh before getting Cory Falvey to fly out to left to nail down the save.