Down 5-0 after an inning and a half, the UTRGV baseball team scored 13 unanswered runs to beat the Houston Cougars 13-5 on Saturday at UTRGV Baseball Stadium in front of a crowd of 4,017.
After welcoming 3,144 fans on Friday, this is the first time UTRGV has drawn back-to-back crowds of over 3,000 since moving into UTRGV Baseball Stadium in 2002. This is just the second crowd of over 4,000, along with the program record attendance of 6,418 fans for a game against Texas on April 26, 2022.
Down 5-0 in the bottom of the second, sophomore Steven Lancia and junior PSJA alum Jacob Sanchez led off with singles. An error brought home Lancia and gave the Vaqueros (7-3) runners on the corners. Junior Kade York hit an RBI-single. Then, after a sacrifice bunt, sophomore Vela alum Isaac Lopez hit a two-run single. Lopez moved to second on the throw to the plate and then to third on a wild pitch before scoring on a sacrifice fly by graduate student Montclair Cain to tie the game at 5.
Reliever Grayson Drezek (0-1) got out of the second inning for the Cougars (4-6). Drezek got the first two outs in the third before plunking Sanchez. Drezek got ahead of senior Roberto Gonzalez 0-2 before allowing an RBI-triple. York followed with a walk and then senior Zerek Saenz hit a two-run double to make the score 8-5.
Senior Alex Verdugo (2-0) made the runs stand up, pitching a career-high 7.1 innings of scoreless two-hit relief, racking up a career-high 10 strikeouts.
The Vaqueros added two more runs in the seventh on an RBI-groundout by Sanchez and an RBI-single by Gonzalez, and three in the eighth on RBI-singles by Cain, junior Adrian Torres, and Lancia.
Five Vaqueros had multi-hit games, led by Lopez, who posted his third-career three-hit game by going 3-for-3 with two walks, two RBI and two runs scored. It was Lopez’s eighth multi-hit game of the second in 10 games, matching hit total from 41 games last season. Graduate student Brandon Pimentel finished 3-for-4. Gonzalez went 2-for-5 with two RBI and two runs scored. Saenz finished 2-for-4 with two RBI and one run scored. Lancia went 2-for-4 with an RBI and a run scored.
The Cougars initially got on the board in the first on a two-out RBI-single by Cameron Nickens.
The Cougars added four runs in the second on a two-run home run by Drew Bianco and RBI-singles by Justin Murray and Zach Arnold.
UTRGV and Houston close out the series on Sunday at 12 p.m. Tickets are on sale now and can be purchased online at GoUTRGV.com/Houston. It’s UTRGV faculty & staff appreciation weekend. Current UTRGV faculty & staff receive free admission with their employee ID. Current UTRGV students receive free general admission with their student ID. All fans need to follow the clear bag policy, details of which can be found at GoUTRGV.com/ClearBag. The box office opens at 10:30 a.m. and gates open at 11 a.m.
Fans unable to attend in person can watch domestically on ESPN+ or internationally via WAC International.