It was a gloomy day outside for baseball, but the Sam Houston State bats were shining bright.
The Bearkats wrapped up their three-game opening season series against Wichita State with a 9-3 win behind a huge game from senior infielder Hayden Simerly and junior starting pitcher Logan Boyd on Sunday.
SHSU struck the scoreboard first in the second inning. The Kats were working with two outs when junior second baseman Ryan Farney drew a walk to bring home the first run of the ballgame. Senior right fielder Travis Lee then hit a single up the middle to bring in the second run. Senior centerfielder Colt Atwood kept the Bearkat scoring streak alive by driving in a run from an infield single. By the time the second inning was over, the Bearkats saw themselves up 4-0 on the Shockers.
Wichita State answered back in the third inning with a sacrifice fly that brought home a run. Boyd would quickly recover to escape the inning.
“I was in some trouble,” Boyd said. “But with solid defense, they really helped me get out of stressful situations.”
The Bearkats were not done yet. After being retired in order in the third inning, the Kats poured in more runs in the fourth.
Farney laid down a bunt, but the Shockers throw to first base sailed high causing an SHSU runner to touch home plate. Atwood was then intentionally walked to load the bases and bring up Simerly who would then step up to the plate and hit an RBI groundout to extend the Bearkats lead to 6-1. SHSU scored three runs on four hits and one error in the bottom of the fourth.
Boyd pitched an impressive game behind a mighty comfortable lead. He pitched six innings, allowed five hits, threw a total of 98 pitches and struck out nine batters. Boyd retired 11 straight batters before exiting the game in the seventh inning.
“I think the whole game revolved around Logan Boyd’s performance on the mound,” head manager Matt Deggs said. “He set a great tone for us.”
The Bearkats’ bats continued their reign of terror in the bottom of the eighth.
Farney smashed the ball to left center field for a one-out double causing the Shockers to make a pitching change. The Shockers put in freshman right-handed pitcher Taylor Goshen to try and extinguish the Bearkats’ scoring momentum, but that was not the case. Lee hit a single driving in Farney and Atwood would answer with a double to drive in Lee. Simerly then stepped up and drove in Atwood for his third RBI of the game.
“This team works really well together offensively,” Deggs said. “We only struck out five times today and drew five walks. They’re hard to put away, athletic and they can run a little bit.”
Sophomore Ryan Brinley closed out the Shockers in the ninth inning for his second save of the season.
Simerly had an outstanding day at the plate, driving in three runs on three hits. He finished the day hitting three-for-five.
“Coach Deggs walked me through a couple of things about my swing before the game today,” Simerly said. “It helped out quite a bit. As far as it goes, I didn’t really have a change in approach.”
The SHSU baseball team will next see action on Tuesday against Texas State in San Marcos.
