UWA fends off elimination with 8-4 win over Abilene Christian

ABILENE, TX — For the first time since the 1992 season, the West Alabama baseball team won a South Central Regional Tournament game, defeating the host and number-one seed Abilene Christian 8-4 on Friday afternoon to fend off elimination. After being shutout in the opener, the Tiger bats came alive, totaling 13 hits, including five doubles. 

Abilene Christian got out to an early 2-0 lead, before the Tigers answered with one run in the bottom of the fifth inning, cutting the deficit in half. Still trailing 2-1 in the bottom of the seventh, West Alabama plated five runs, led by a pair of two-run doubles off of the bats of Jacob Townsend and William Crawford. 

ACU plated two runs in the eighth; only to see UWA answer with a pair of runs in the bottom half off the inning thanks to run-scoring doubles from Townsend and Dustin Roberts. 

Ryne Lawson (8-3) threw seven strong innings for West Alabama, allowing four runs, three earned, on nine hits in seven innings of work en route to picking up the win. Brandon Wheeler came on in the eighth and picked up his school-record tenth save of the season, limiting the Wildcats to no runs on three hits in the final two frames. West Alabama also got a lot of help from its defense, turning three double plays to end ACU threats. 

Townsend finished 3-for-5 with three RBI, while Clint Moody turned in a big game, going 4-for-5 with a double and one RBI. Roberts finished the game 2-for-4 with a pair of runs scored and freshman Rob Dahlberg added a pair of hits and one RBI. 

Abilene Christian finished the game with 12 hits, all singles, led by Alec Sowards and Chris Walsh, who each went 2-for-3 with one RBI. Brian Kennedy (7-3) took the loss for the Wildcats, yielding five earned runs on nine hits to go along with three strikeouts in 6.1 innings of work. 

The Tigers move to 42-21 on the year and will take the field at 4:00 p.m., on Saturday in an elimination game with Incarnate Word (37-20), who eliminated Central Oklahoma 4-2 in the early game on Friday. All of the exciting action can be heard live on WZNJ FM-106.5 (Demopolis). 

Written by: Jason Hughes