Playing for the first time in nearly two weeks, the UTPB baseball team was looking to build on the momentum gained from winning an early-season tournament in Fort Worth.
Adams State, however, had other plans for the Falcons.
Using timely hitting and taking advantage of a pair of UTPB errors, the visiting Grizzlies defeated the Falcons 5-3 Monday at Roden Field.
The victory completed a three-game sweep for Adams State (3-11) and left UTPB coach Brian Renke at a loss to explain his team’s inability to compete.
“I was disappointed all weekend because we didn’t compete like we have in the first couple of games,” UTPB head coach Brian Reinke said. I don’t know why. We didn’t have a reason to not be able to compete and win the games.”
Nico Nintze and Dakota Solis each had one hit and score one run for the Grizzlies, while Billy Ryan had one hit and one RBI in the victory.
UTPB finished with 10 hits, but left 10 runners on base. In spite of the outcome, the Falcons’ effort didn’t go unnoticed.
“UTPB battled throughout all three games and they really battled throughout this game,” Adams State head coach James Capra said. “That’s the way all three games in this series have gone. I was really happy with our pitching. We played great defense when we needed it and that was the key to us winning. We were able to pull through some tough situations.”
Adams State posted wins of 2-0 and 8-5 on Sunday to begin the three-game series before closing out on Monday.
The final game of the series started slowly as both teams failed to score through two innings.
The Grizzlies got on the scoreboard first when Solis reached on a two-out walk and then moved to second when Paul Giglio was hit by a pitch from UTPB starter Joshua Gonzales.
Erick Hildebrant promptly singled home Solis with the game’s first run and the score stayed that way until the Falcons (5-5) tied the game in the bottom of the fifth when Jonathan Bermudez scored on William Birelein’s single.
Adams took the lead for good in the seventh when the Falcons committed back-to-back errors to allow Tyler Erzen to score the go-ahead run.
The Grizzlies would add three more runs in the eighth inning and the Falcons couldn’t recover, though they cut into the lead on Gabriel Melendez’s RBI double and a sacrifice fly by Bermudez in the bottom of the inning.
“It’s something that we really needed because we’ve been in situations where we had a lead going into the later part of the game, but then blew it, so it was good for our kids to close out a game,” Capra said.
Trent Hughes, the fourth pitcher used by the Grizzlies, earned the victory, with Dalton Carleo getting a save after pitching a perfect ninth.
UTPB’s Tanner Rhodes (1-2) took the loss.
“I think both teams pitched pretty well throughout the weekend,” Reinke said. “There weren’t a whole lot of errors. We just didn’t get the job done and they did.”
Bermudez finished with one run, three hits and one RBI while Pemron Burrows had two hits. Melendez finished with one run, two hits and one RBI.
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