Stephen F. Austin
Central Arkansas
SFA Takes Series From UCA
4/6/2008 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
April 6, 2008
CONWAY, Ark. - Kevin Crabtree hit a pair of home runs and Richard Folmer pitched the final 3.2 innings to pick up the win as SFA won its first SLC series of the season, taking the third game of the series 10-8 over Central Arkansas at UCA Field on Sunday.
SFA (13-16, 3-8) used three pitchers on the day, with freshman Jeremy Tamez going 5.1 innings in his first-ever start and only allowing four hits and three earned runs. Folmer entered in the sixth to get his third win of the year and give the `Jacks their fifth win in six tries over the Bears (13-19, 3-9) in the last two seasons.
Matt Whitaker, last years's SLC strikeout king, entered in relief of Reece Cross in the fifth inning, but allowed four earned runs and was tagged with his third loss of the season for UCA.
After Tamez got the first two hitters he faced in the first, Bears' catcher Chris Davis made it 1-0 UCA when he launched the first pitch he saw from Tamez over the left-field scoreboard for the first run of the game.
Cross retired the first nine `Jacks that he saw in order before Jeff Brewer opened up the fourth by reaching on an error by UCA third baseman Jonathan Yerby. Crabtree then immediately followed by mashing a 1-0 pitch far beyond the left-field wall for his third home run of the season to give SFA a 2-1 lead. Sean Meyers then singled and alertly moved to third on a hit-and-run groundout by Justin Roland and Kevin Croft made it 3-1 SFA when he lined a two-out single into left field to score Meyers.
Central Arkansas answered with an unearned run in the bottom of the inning to make it 3-2 on a sacrifice fly by Scott Cline that scored Chris Houk, who had advanced all the way to third on an errant pickoff attempt from Tamez.
Noel Trevino then led off the fifth with a triple into the right-center field gap and Trent Blanchard took advantage of the opportunity and picked up his first RBI of the year with a line-drive single to right field. He came home three batters later when Crabtree went deep for the second time of the day off of Cross, giving the `Jacks a 6-2 lead.
Tamez continued into the sixth inning, but back-to-back doubles by Kent Taylor and Houk brought home a UCA run and drove the freshman from the game in favor of Kevin Thomas. It only took two pitches from him to make it 6-4 on a throwing error by Brewer and a wild pitch that brought in Houk.
Things did not get much better in the sixth as after a walk to Scott Cline, pinch hitter Eric Tennyson singled to load the bases and Josh Huffman followed with a with a double down the right-field line to score a pair and knot the score at six apiece. Folmer then came in for Thomas and surrendered a sacrifice fly to Kevin Rawls that gave UCA a 7-6 lead through six.
The wild scoring frenzy continued in the seventh as well as SFA re-took the lead 9-6 with three runs of their own. With runners on first and second, the `Jacks got a two-out single from Sean Meyers to bring one home, then Justin Roland hammered a shot over Cline's head in center field to bring home Meyers and Kai Kirby.
Matt Whatley came in to score in the top of the eighth after a leadoff double and a pair of wild pitches from UCA reliever Matt Whitaker and Folmer retired six of the final seven batters he faced, including all three in the ninth to wrap things up and give the `Jacks a 10-8 win.
The `Jacks begin a six-game homestand on Tuesday when UNLV invades Jaycees Field for a pair of games. SFA then goes back into conference play with three games against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi beginning Friday.
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