EDINBURG — Kade York’s first home run of the season couldn’t have come at a better time for UTRGV baseball.
The Vaqueros’ short stop led off the bottom of the ninth inning with a solo home run to left field for a 9-8 walk off win over Tarleton on Sunday at UTRGV Baseball Stadium to clinch a series sweep for UTRGV.
The Vaqueros, who won Game 1 15-5 in seven innings Friday and Game 2 6-2 on Saturday, improved to 15-12 overall and 6-6 in Western Athletic Conference competition.
“It was a really hard fought game. That’s a really tough team over there that’s really talented,” UTRGV head coach Derek Matlock said. “We did a good job of staying in the hunt, staying in the fight. What a good, gritty team to come back and respond and use the ballpark with the wind flying and doing some things with the long ball. What a good job by York in the nine-hole hitting a homer in a big moment to walk us off and get us out of here after a really tough conference start. Now, we’ve won five of six of late and you can breathe a little bit, but it ain’t going to get any easier. We got to keep getting better.”
York, a junior college transfer from Mesa, Arizona, hit his first career home run with UTRGV and was greeted at home plate by an ice bath compliments of a swarm of celebrating Vaqueros.
“In the ninth inning, coach said, ‘sit on a fastball’ and I got one middle-in and got it right,” York said.
Tarleton catcher and Edinburg Vela alumnus Jaime “Mito” Perez put the Texans in front 8-3 with a three-run home run during the sixth.
UTRGV opened the bottom half of the sixth with three-straight hits on a single by Brandon Pimentel, a double by Roberto Gonzalez and an RBI single by Montclair Cain. PSJA High alumnus Jacob Sanchez drove in another run with a sacrifice fly to make it 8-5. Steven Lancia then hit a three-run homer for the Vaqueros to tie the game at 8.
Zach Tjelmeland (1-1) earned the win by pitching a scoreless ninth with two strikeouts.
Next for UTRGV is a nonconference game against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at UTRGV Baseball Stadium in Edinburg.