The UCA baseball team faced off against UALR in an I-40 showdown, but came up short 9-6.
Coming off of a series win against Lipscomb, UCA (14-20, 8-7 ASUN) was looking to shut down the Trojans (15-19, 5-6 CONF) before heading to Bellarmine, but that was not the case.
Coach Nick Harlan said, “I thought that we didn’t play well enough to win, we gave up nine free bases and we had a couple opportunities to take care of the baseball and we didn’t.”
UCA went with freshman pitcher Tate Collins as the starter in the Wednesday outing, and he pitched 1 ⅔ innings and walked five Trojan hitters and struckout one.
On the other hand, the Trojans sent sophomore pitcher Gage Haley to the mound, and he tossed three shutout innings, allowing one walk and striking out three.
UALR got off to a quick start in the top of the first inning when two of their batters walked, and were able to advance to second and third base on a fielder’s choice. With two outs, junior third-baseman Ty Rhoades hit a fly ball to center-field and freshman center-fielder Sam Reynolds made a diving catch to end the inning and save two runs.
UCA came up in the bottom of the first inning and were sat down in order.
After Collins had four walks in the second inning, he was removed from the game and junior Gavin Alveti took over pitching duties.
The score at this point was 1-0 UALR.
No team would score again until the top of the fourth inning when the first two Trojan bats reached base, then with one out, junior first-baseman Sammy Harris singled and drove in a run.
One batter later, junior right-fielder Ryan Geck hit a sacrifice fly to right field, scoring another Trojan run.
That made the score 3-0 Trojans.
In the bottom of the fourth, UCA began to crawl their way back.
Senior right-fielder Preston Curtis began the inning by hitting a double down the right field line.
The next batter, senior first-baseman Jagger Schattle was hit by the pitch, putting runners at first and second base.
After junior designated hitter Keon Moseni was hit by the pitch, freshman catcher Carter Alexander hit a bases loaded single down the right field line, scoring Curtis and Schattle.
This made it a 3-2 UALR lead.
In the bottom of the sixth, the score was 4-3 UALR, but UCA punched back after a two run double by sophomore left-fielder Zeb Allen.
UCA took the lead 5-4.
After UALR loaded the bases in the top of the seventh, senior shortstop Alex Seguine hit a bases clearing triple, putting UALR back on top 7-5.
UCA continued to fight as Moseni hit his first home run of the season, making it a 7-6 game. Unfortunately, UCA was not able to crawl back as the Trojans scored two more, and ultimately came out victorious by a score of 9-6. Alexander was the leading hitter for the Bears, going 2-4 with three runs-batted-in.
UCA then traveled to Louisville Kentucky to take on Bellarmine on April 11, where they took two out of three games from them.
The Bears next matchup will be against Lipscomb, where they will travel to Memphis for a three game set beginning April 17.