ABILENE, Texas -- Senior Marcus Uechi singled home Caleb Jacques with two outs in the ninth inning to give Hardin-Simmons a 3-2 walkoff win against Texas Lutheran on Monday afternoon at Hunter Field.
The win snapped a seven-game losing streak for the Cowboys and improved them to 7-9 on the year. Texas Lutheran, a former American Southwest Conference rival, fell to 16-7 on the season.
HSU threatened to waste a great pitching effort by freshman Jeremy Hallmark. He worked seven-plus innings and allowed just one earned run in his first career start. He retired 15 consecutive batters at one point and allowed only three hits.
In the seventh inning with two outs and nobody on base, Derek Kanas reached on a fielding error by Uechi and stole second base. Hallmark then struck out Klaus Bohrmann but the pitch was in the dirt and Zack Patino's throw to first got away allowing Kanas to score.
In the eighth, Zach Jacobs singled and Brooks McKinney was hit by a pitch by Hallmark. Sam Hallen came on and got a groundout and intentionally walked Tony Gennusa. Blake Northrop came on and Lincoln Baylor followed with an infield chopper behind the mound that scored a run on the infield hit. Northrop got the final two outs.
HSU tied the game with two runs in the bottom of the eighth. Jason Vause was hit by a pitch and Uechi walked and Colson Craddick followed with an RBI single. Brandon Walker walked to load the bases and then Patino then was hit by a pitch to drive home Uechi.
In the ninth, Caleb Jacques led off with a single and moved to second on a sac bunt by Vause and to third on a flyout by Jon Finney. Uechi then drove a ball to the gap in right center for the win.
Uechi and Zach de Luna led the Cowboys with two hits each and four different Bulldogs had one hit each.
Northrop improved to 2-0 with the win with 1.2 innings of scoreless relief. Will McKinney took the loss for TLU. He was the fourth Bulldog pitcher of the game.Starter Cody Moore was solid with seven shutout innings.
