For the third time in four games, the Horned Frogs have put together a late inning rally to come from behind and sink an opponent.A four run sixth inning helped propel the No. 16 Horned Frogs (6-1) over the No. 27 Oral Roberts Unversity Golden Eagles (2-3).
Junior transfer, Chris Johnson took the hill for his first start at Lupton Stadium before a crowd of more than 1,700 fans and he earned his first win after a rocky first inning of work.
A pair of hits by leadoff man Brendan Duffy and second baseman Jake Kahaulelio sparked an early rally for the Golden Eagles. Johnson walked the next batter on four straight pitches to bring up Chad Rothford. Rothford who had homered in his last at-bat Saturday worked a walk to keep the bases loaded and push a run across. Johnson froze the next batter with a breaking ball and looked to be in position to end the inning when he managed to get Kelly Minissale to hit a ground ball to third baseman Steven Trout.
“We worked it out to get the groundball we needed,” catcher Andrew Walker said. “But it just didn’t end up right.”
A sloppy turn by second baseman Corey Steglich ended up putting runners on first and third with two outs rather than retiring the side.
After that first inning the offense for the Golden Eagles was entirely stunted by Johnson’s finess on the mound as he threw four scoreless innings while striking out five batters.
“I couldn’t find my fastball early on, and I threw a lot of sliders,” Johnson said. “Once I found my fastball, I got a groove working.”
The Frogs cut away at the three run ORU lead thanks to botched plays in the field and a passed ball courtesy of ORU catcher Brian Van Kirk. The cold gloves of the Golden Eagles allowed three errors and as a result only three of the eight TCU runs were earned.
TCU shortstop Brian Kervin and outfielder Austin Adams provided much of the offensive force for the Horned Frogs as Kervin had three runs scored during the afternoon and Adams picked up three hits and two runs-batted-in.
“They are too good of players to hold sub .250 batting averages, they show up when the game is on the line and that is a true sign of a veteran player,” head coach Jim Schlossnagle said.
Some tempers in the stands began to flare when Oral Roberts pitchers managed to bean TCU batters five times. Kervin and Walker were both plunked twice in the game.
“The first guy that hit me grazed my head a little bit, but he’s a freshman and the pitch kind of got away from him,” Walker said.
The three game sweep of the Golden Eagles marked the first series sweep of the season for the Horned Frogs as the team prepares for the Baseball at the Beach tournament in South Carolina.
“This sweep was really big, ORU is ranked No. 26 or 27 and sweeping them at home gives us a lot of momentum heading into next week,” Johnson said.
