April 20th, 2008
Kids Day tops week of wins for Texas State

Sunday afternoon capped a five-game streak of wins for the Texas State Bobcat baseball team after taking an 11-5 victory over Central Arkansas. The win gave the ‘Cats its second Southland Conference sweep of the season and improves their league record to 13-5. The First Annual Kids Day at the Ball Park brought out nearly 500 fans to Bobcat Field to witness the victory.Thomas Field put the ‘Cats first mark on the board, leading off the bottom of the first with a weekend routine home run to right field. Back to back doubles from Paul Goldschmidt and Lance Loftin tacked on a second run and Ben Theriot knocked a base hit into left field to give Texas State a 3-0 lead.

The ‘Cats spread the score to 7-0 in the second inning, starting off with Jerry Cervantes rounding the bases after being hit by a pitch. Bret Atwood hit an infield single to advance Cervantes to third before Field batted in the run on a single to left field. Atwood scored after advancing on two groundouts and Lance Loftin belted in the final two runs off the inning with a homer to left center to plate Field.

Central Arkansas fought back in the third, hitting two opening singles to put runners on the corners. A pitch from Zach Tritz caught Cervantes on the next at-bat and retired the catcher for the afternoon. The pause in action did not slow the Bears offense that followed with three-straight hits for three runs. A sacrifice fly sent the final run of the inning across the plate for UCA and trimmed the lead to 7-4.

Tritz saw his first at-bat of the season in the bottom of the third after the ‘Cats lost its designated hitter spot, and with two outs Matt Whitaker struck out the hurler for a scoreless third inning for Texas State.

But the ‘Cats took advantage of two UCA errors in the bottom of the fourth to score three more runs and tacked on the final tally in the bottom of the sixth for the 11-5 victory.

Field jump started the offense and finished 3-for-5 with three runs and two RBI. Goldschmidt went 3-for-4 with one RBI and one run in the contest. Backcock and Loftin both added 2-for-4 performances and scored two runs. The pair added two and three RBI, respectively.

Tritz finished 0-for-2 at the plate, but was credited with his seventh victory of the season after pitching 5.1 innings. Tritz walked just two batters and struck out four in his stint on the mound.

Taylor entered in the sixth and retired seven-straight batters, before Josh Walter closed out the contest in the ninth.

Bobby Pritchett took the loss for Central Arkansas after pitching 1.2 innings and allowing seven runs off seven hits.

The Bobcats will take on its third ranked opponent of the season Tuesday night when they travel to College Station for a 6:30 p.m. game with No. 8 Texas A&M.

By AMBER ARTERBERRY
Assistant Sports Information Director

Staff photo