Ball State University
4-3
Sacramento State
4-4
Cardinals Outlast Hornets In Series Finale In Sacramento
February 22, 2025 | Baseball
Ball State trailed by seven, then led 9-7 and 13-8 before relief specialist Garrett Harker shut down the home team over the final 2.2 innings. Hornets second baseman Cameron Sewell homered to left to lead off the eighth inning and make it a 13-10 score, but Harker got four strikeouts and three ground outs among the 10 batters he faced to squelch a late rally.
The Cardinals designated their fourth game in three days as a bullpen game, and got through the contest using six different arms. As expected, batters were the stars, with Ball State players collecting at least two hits. Garrett Arnold continued his torrid start to the season with three hits in five trips to the plate. Alex Richter, Nick Husovsky and Blake Bevis each rapped three hits.
Bevis also scored three times and his towering homer into a parking structure beyond left field put the Cardinals on top in the top of the fifth.
Sac State jumped to an early lead, plating three runs in the first inning and four in the second. After taking advantage of a fielding error in right field to score two Ball State runs on a fly ball by Dylan Grego in the third, Davis' blast to right pulled Ball State within 7-5 in the fourth. Later in the fourth, Grego's single drew the Cardinals within one run, and set up Bevis' heroics in the fifth.
After the Hornets scored one in the sixth, a four-run Ball State seventh inning put the Cardinals in command. This time though, Ball State's scoring came on the strength of three singles, a sac bunt, a wild pitch the the Hornets' fifth error.
"Our boys showed a lot of character after losing two close games Friday, then being down 7-0 and win. It was a very impressive, great team victory with a lot of guys contributing."
The bullpen affair began with sophomore transfer Evan Shapiro receiving his first Ball State start, but the Hornets got to him, and then Drue Young, for their first seven runs over just an inning-plus, before Alex Burden got three straight outs to end the second inning and kept the Hornets scoreless and hitless over two innings. Zac Leduc (1-0) entered in the fourth and earned his first win of the season while firing three frames with four strikeouts and surrendering just one run. Zach Kwasny opened the seventh inning as a bridge to Harker who collected his third save of the season, and his second in the series.
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Team Stats
Pitching:
W: Leduc, Zach (1-0)
L: Torres, Dylan (0-1)
S: Harker, Garrett (3)
Batting:
HR: Bevis, Blake 1 ; Davis, Ty 1
RBI: Balius, Gavin 1 ; Richter, Alex 1 ; Grego, Dylan 1 ; Bevis, Blake 3 ; Davis, Ty 3
SH: Balius, Gavin 1
Base Running:
RUNS: Balius, Gavin 2 ; Richter, Alex 1 ; Arnold, Garrett 2 ; Husovsky, Nick 1 ; Griffiths, Brett 1 ; Bevis, Blake 3 ; Davis, Ty 1 ; Miller, Grant 1 ; Jacobs, Clay 1
SB: Balius, Gavin 1 ; Grego, Dylan 1 ; Jacobs, Clay 1
CS: Balius, Gavin 1
Batting:
2B: Smith, JP 1 ; Poturnak, Jakob 1
HR: Poturnak, Jakob 1 ; Sewell, Cameron 1
RBI: Smith, JP 3 ; Poturnak, Jakob 3 ; Sewell, Cameron 2 ; Perez, Christian 1
SF: Smith, JP 1 ; Sewell, Cameron 1
Base Running:
RUNS: White, Tyler 2 ; Christiansen, Ryan 2 ; Smith, JP 2 ; Poturnak, Jakob 1 ; Sewell, Cameron 1 ; Walton, Myles 2
SB: White, Tyler 1 ; Sewell, Cameron 1
HBP: White, Tyler 1 ; Perez, Christian 1
PO: Sewell, Cameron 1
