Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
KINGSVILLE, Texas — It was a tough weekend for Eastern New Mexico University’s baseball and softball teams — especially at the plate.
In three combined games, ENMU managed just one single. Included was a double perfect game in softball at the hands of rival West Texas A&M on Saturday, with the Lady Buffs winning each in five innings by scores of 10-0 and 8-0 at Canyon, Texas.
Meantime, the baseball team was outhit 8-1 in Saturday’s season finale at Texas A&M-Kingsville, losing to the Javelinas 5-2.
Baseball — The Greyhounds (8-30, 7-28 Lone Star Conference) got a solid outing from Texico redshirt freshman right-hander Dalton Thatcher (1-6), who went four innings and allowed three runs (one earned) on five hits, with four walks and two strikeouts.
But the bats were stymied by Kingsville (18-9, 17-9), which used five pitchers for the third game in a row en route to a series sweep. All told, only one Javelinas pitcher worked twice, Mason Foster (3-1), who earned his second save of the season on Saturday after picking up the win in Thursday’s contest.
The Hounds got their only runs in Saturday’s tilt on sacrifice flies by outfielders Nicholas Tamez in the fourth inning and Rio Granger in the sixth. Kingsville right fielder Matthew Castro went 2-for-3 and made it a 5-1 game with a two-run single in the fifth.
The only hit for ENMU was a single to right field by freshman Braeton Matthews in the sixth, which helped set up the team’s second run.
Softball — The Greyhounds, who went into last season’s COVID-19 shutdown off a 5-4, 4-3 sweep of WT in Portales, were no match this time for the 10th-ranked Lady Buffs, going 30-up, 30-down.
WT (32-10, 20-10 LSC), which has won 10 in a row and improved to 20-2 at home, quickly took charge of the opener with five runs in the bottom of the first. That rally was capped by a three-run homer from right fielder Julie Guzman, her second round-tripper of the season.
Sophomore right-hander Kyra Lair (17-5) breezed to the win, striking out nine of the 15 batters she faced while tossing only 59 pitches in the contest. Meantime, seven of WT’s 11 hits went for extra bases.
In Game 2, ENMU freshman Brook Leger (3-8) gave up three runs in the first, then held WT scoreless until the fourth when the Lady Buffs added three more. The game ended in the bottom of the fifth on the eight-run rule when first baseman Cinthia Garcia launched her first home run of the campaign, a two-out, two-run shot to left field.
Sophomore right-hander Emilee Wilson (11-5) had just three strikeouts in the game, but needed only 41 pitches to get through five frames.
The Hounds (4-23, 4-22) are slated to wrap up the season this week with LSC make-up twin bills starting at 3 p.m. (MDT) today at St. Mary’s and at 11 a.m. on Friday at St. Edward’s.