Rasbeary hits walk-off HR for McNeese
Special to the American Press
Clayton Rasbeary hit a one-out walk-off home run off Tyler Miller to cap McNeese State’s 9-8 come-from-behind victory over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Saturday.
The Islanders (4-10, 0-2 Southland Conference), who lost their ninth straight and fell to 0-5 away from home, led 8-1 after five innings after roughing up Cowboys starter Ty Abraham for five runs on six hits in three innings.
But the Cowboys (7-6, 2-0), who stayed perfect at home at 7-0, chipped away at the lead with three runs in the sixth and seventh innings, and a tying run in the eighth.
In the meantime, reliever Cameron Foster bought the Cowboys time to climb back into the game by pitching 3 1/3 innings, allowing one run on two hits.
“That was really the performance of the game,” Cowboys head coach Justin Hill said about Foster’s performance. “He gave up that (fifth-inning) home run but really pitched well and allowed us the opportunity to get back into the game.”
McNeese’s bats got going in the sixth with a pair of infield singles and an Islanders error to help it score three runs to cut the deficit to 8-4.
In the seventh, Brett Whelton started a rally with a one-out double. The Cowboys got an RBI sacrifice fly by Gabe Vasquez, a Reid Bourque single and a two-run single up the middle by Payton Harden to cut the margin to 8-7.
Jordan Yeatts tied the score with a two-out, bases-loaded sacrifice fly in the bottom of the eighth to knot the score at 8-all.
Relief pitcher Isaac Duplechain (2-1), entered to begin the eighth inning and got six consecutive outs to set up Rasbeary’s heroics.
McNeese finished with 14 hits with eight of those coming off the bats of Harden (4-for-6) and Nate Fisbeck (4-for-5). Welton and Bourque each added two hits.
Luke Marbach, Itchy Burts and Diego Johnson had two hits and two RBIs each for the Islanders. Johnson hit his first homer of the season in the fifth inning.
The Cowboys will go for the series sweep at 1 p.m. today with Jonathan Ellison (0-0, 0.00 ERA) on the mound.
American Press