JONESBORO, Ark. (4/22/23) – Runs scored early and often Saturday afternoon at Tomlinson Stadium-Kell Field, as the Arkansas State baseball team pounded out 21 hits in a 25-4 victory over ULM.
The Red Wolves (13-22, 4-11 SBC) recorded a dozen extra-base hits and scored at least one run in the first seven innings en route to tying the weekend series. Every batter in the A-State starting lineup recorded at least one hit while 11 players scored at least once. The Warhawks (15-24, 5-11) scored all four of their runs on solo home runs and fell victim to six costly errors in the contest. A-State's 25 runs scored is the most since plating 27 on May 4, 2019, against Appalachian State.
A-State handed starting pitcher Kyler Carmack (4-1) an early 3-0 lead that he would not relinquish, hurling his fourth quality start of the season. The redshirt freshman righty struck out four and walked one, allowing one run on five hits. Max Charlton worked the seventh, with Kevin Wiseman closing out the afternoon with two innings, striking out four. In total, the Red Wolves' pitching staff struck out nine Warhawks and surrendered just one walk.
ULM starter Trey Lindsay (0-1) lasted just two-thirds of an inning before the Warhawks turned to six bullpen arms.
Blake Burris led the way at the plate, going 4-for-5 with four runs and four driven in, while Wil French scored four times and drove in a pair. Cason Tollett drove in four runs on two hits, scoring twice, with cleanup hitter Brandon Hager going 2-for-5 with three runs and three RBIs.
Allen Grier scored three times on three hits, while Daedrick Cail, Cross Jumper and Dylan DeButy scored twice apiece, with Cail driving in three runs with a double and a triple. Kody Darcy tallied a hit and a run scored while driving in two.
Tollett put the Scarlet and Black on the board with a three-run homer in the first – a towering 400-foot blast – to make it 3-0. Jake Haggard hit a solo shot to left in the second to make it 3-1, but the Red Wolves countered with eight runs in the second to create some distance.
A-State sent 12 batters to the plate in its eight-run second, with Burris driving in the first two runs on a single up the middle. Darcy then singled home Burris before Cail roped a bases-clearing triple, later scoring on a wild pitch. French doubled home Grier with two outs in the frame before a flyout to left ended the frenzy.
An RBI groundout by Darcy to plate Hager in the third inning added another run, and then the Red Wolves tacked on five more in the fourth to make it 17-1. Jumper and DeButy scored on back-to-back errors before Burris plated Grier. A passed ball allowed French to cross home, with Burris scoring on an RBI single by Tollett.
Five more scored in the bottom of the fifth, as Burris singled in DeButy ahead of a double by Brayden Caskey that scored French. Three pitches later, Hager launched his seventh home run of the year down the left field line, a three-run round tripper to expand A-State's lead to 22-1.
In the bottom of the sixth, Jumper scored when a throwing error allowed Grier to reach to make it 23-1. ULM broke its scoring drought in the seventh with a pair of pinch-hit solo home runs by Travis Washburn and Davis Meche, but the Red Wolves answered with a two-run double to center by John Hoskyn.
The visitors added a run in the eighth on a solo homer by Jarrett McDonald, but Wiseman left a runner at second to end the threat. The reliever also stranded two base runners in the top of the ninth, forcing a popout to end the outing.
NEXT UP
A-State looks to take the series against the Warhawks Sunday, with first pitch set for 1 p.m. on ESPN+. The radio broadcast carried on The Ticket Radio Network stations 95.3, 96.9 and 970 AM in Jonesboro, as well as online at 953theticket.com.
SOCIAL MEDIA
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