JONESBORO, Ark. (4/9/14) – Freshman Bryan Ayers tossed four innings of shutout baseball and Eric Wilcoxson drove in a pair of runs, leading the Arkansas State baseball team to a 3-0 win over Central Arkansas in a midweek contest Wednesday night at Tomlinson Stadium.
Ayers combined with three relievers on an five-hitter, and Morgan Croft picked up his fifth save with a perfect ninth inning to give A-State its third shutout of the year.
The freshman starter gave up four hits, three walks and struck out a career-high eight in his first career victory as a Red Wolves' baseball player. Tyler Zuber pitched 2/3 of an inning, while Cody Woodhouse tossed 1 2/3 before giving way to Croft in the ninth inning.
A-State (18-15) scored in the first, thanks to a piece of timely from Wilcoxson who doubled to right-centerfield over a drawn in defense that scored Zach Maggio who led off the game with a walk. Wilcoxson came around to score on an RBI single by Matt Burgess to give the Red Wolves an early 2-0.
Ayers was solid from that point and worked out of a jam in the third inning after giving up a leadoff single to Charles Deckard and then gave up a walk two batters later to put runners on the corners with two outs, but the Vilonia, Ark., native came back to strikeout Chris Townsend to get out the inning.
In the sixth inning, Joey Pinney reached third base, but Ayers came back to strikeout Austin White to end the inning for eighth strikeout of the night.
The Red Wolves added a run in the seventh inning on an RBI single by Wilcoxson that plated Derek Birginske who had walked to start the inning.
Wilcoxson is now hitting .409 on the year with five extra-base hits, while Burgess now has a team-high 35 runs batted in.
A-State will travel to Mobile, Ala., April 11-13 to take on South Alabama in a Sun Belt Conference matchup. First-pitch for Friday and Saturday is set for 6 p.m. while Sunday's finale will start at 1 p.m. All three games can be heard on 95.3FM The Ticket/970AM KNEA and in the StateZone at AStateRedWolves.com
For in-game updates follow @AStateGameDay on Twitter and stay up to date with A-State baseball by following the team on Twitter (@AStateBaseball) and Facebook (Facebook.com/RedWolvesbaseball).
