Conrado Diaz out the rest of the season with injury
UTRGV baseball (18-17, 9-8) takes down the soaring Redhawks of Seattle U (13-18, 7-10) 11-4 Friday night at the UTRGV Baseball Stadium.
The Redhawks, coming into South Texas, had taken three-out-of-four games from nationally ranked Western Athletic Conference (WAC) opponent No.24 Sacramento State that included throwing 26 innings of scoreless baseball.
However, the Vaqueros were coming off a 14-run offensive showcase Tuesday night against Texas A&M Corpus Christi showed no signs of slowing down.
After the Redhawks scored the opening run of the game in the top of third on a junior third baseman Justin Kodama single, the Vaqueros responded in the bottom half of the inning by putting up three runs courtesy of a junior catcher RJ Ochoa’s two-RBI double and a graduate left fielder Elijah Alexander’s double.
The Vaqueros would then proceed to go on an offensive tear for the next four innings as they put up a run in the fourth, two in the fifth, one in the sixth and four in the seventh to lead 11-3.
In a postgame news conference via Zoom, UTRGV Head Coach Derek Matlock spread praise around his entire ballclub.
“I was really excited about the offense from Alexander, [graduate center fielder Coleman] Grubbs again, and [graduate second baseman Andy] Atwood,” Matlock said. “I was really fired up about the offense.”
Alexander would stuff the stat sheet with two hits and one run, RBI, walk and stolen base in five at-bats. Grubbs not only showed off his swing with three hits and one RBI but his quick feet stealing three bases and scoring three runs. Atwood would receive the victory sombrero with a three hit, two-RBI performance that included a solo home run in the sixth.
Graduate ace Kevin Stevens led the way for the Vaqueros, in a performance Matlock would call “outstanding,” throwing six innings allowing one run on five hits and striking out six in route to his fourth win of the season.
Out of the bullpen, junior reliever Deryk Serbantez plunked three Redhawks to load the basses before being pulled for graduate Ricky Arevalo who closed out the game throwing three innings allowing one run on three hits.
Matlock afterwards explained he went to Serbantez first after having a good appearance Tuesday night but quickly went to Arevalo the rest of the game in a move looking forward to Saturday’s doubleheader.
“Ricky did a great job,” Matlock said. “He rested our guys from Tuesday and our backend guy [senior reliever Chase] Bridges and [freshman Zack] Tjelmeand come from the start that’s in the back. So, that was a positive for Ricky to come in and just eat that many outs and throw strikes.”
Graduate catcher and third baseman Conrado Diaz will miss the remainder of the season as Matlock announced he has a torn ligament in his thumb.
Stepping in at the hot corner tonight in his place was sophomore Carson Letterman, who despite having a throwing error, made a cross diamond throw to record the final out and had two RBI with a sac-bunt in the fifth and a sac-fly in the seventh.
Matlock will look to go with Letterman as he is confident in his abilities.
“We are probably going to settle in with [Letterman] a bit right here and let him get his feet wet, see if he can get [it] going a little bit for us,” Matlock said. “He’s a great competitor and a great defensive player and we got to get him to do what he does in practice in game, he can do it.”
The Vaqueros will be back in action starting noon Saturday for a doubleheader against the Redhawks with the second game starting 45 minutes after the conclusion of the first game.
Twitter: @Radio_Rubio
