Three different games. Three different scores. But all three games against the Oral Roberts Golden Eagles were Horned Frogs victories.The baseball team (6-1) completed a three-game sweep of Oral Roberts (2-3) after some clutch hitting by junior shortstop Bryan Kervin and senior outfielder Austin Adams.
During the series, Kervin went seven for 12 with a home run and five runs scored, while Adams had six hits and five runs batted in.
“They are too good of players to hold sub-.250 batting averages,” head coach Jim Schlossnagle said. “They show up when the game is on the line, and that is a sign of a veteran player.”
In game two of the series Saturday afternoon, Adams and Kervin came through to help bring the Horned Frogs back from a three-run deficit. Kervin hit a two-out, go-ahead home run in the bottom of the eighth inning, and Adams put the nail in the coffin with a majestic three-run homer three batters later.
The streak for the two continued after Saturday’s slugfest as the tandem kept plugging away against Golden Eagle pitching when the two combined for five hits, three runs and two RBI.
Oral Roberts brought a touted lineup into the series that was silenced by TCU’s pitching staff. The No. 3 and No. 4 hitters in their lineup, junior catcher Brian Van Kirk, and senior first baseman Chad Rothford each put up subpar numbers in the three-game set. The two combined to go 2 for 22 and could not solve the collective starting performances from pitchers Jake Arrieta, Chance Corgan and Chris Johnson.
“We just wanted to get ahead of them on the first pitch then jam them with fastballs and change-ups away,” junior catcher Andrew Walker said.
By keeping Van Kirk quiet at the plate, the Horned Frogs were able to keep the bases relatively empty in front of Rothford.
When the two did get their only hits of the series, it was back-to-back solo home runs off redshirt freshman Derek VerHagen.
“In those situations, you just keep throwing strikes, and he did a good job,” Schlossnagle said.
The series marked the first sweep of the season and the first at home since the Horned Frogs took three straight from UT-Pan America last May.
“We’ve sometimes has trouble getting the sweeps, like last week (against UCF),” Walker said. “But this is against a top-30 team, and we played a lot of good baseball this weekend.”
The team will prepare for their four game road trip in South Carolina this week where it will face three NCAA tournament teams from 2006.
“We are fortunate to have won three games against a great club,” Schlossnagle said. “I’m really proud of our team and this should springboard us into next week.
