The Texas State Bobcats, looking for their first victory in the newly renovated Bobcat Field, came out Friday night to face the Purdue Boilermakers in the start of a three game series. The two teams, having never faced each other in the schools history, come in on somber notes as the Cats lost their home opener in a tough game to Texas, and the Boilermakers only getting in 2 out of 4 games in a tournament over the weekend.
Going to the mound for the Boilermakers was Matt Morgan. Morgan came into the game with a 5.40 ERA and didnt help it much as he scattered six runs over his tenure of work. Morgan ran into trouble early giving up runs in the first, second, and third innings. Morgan settled down a little in the 4th and 5th, only to get touched up and eventually pulled shortly thereafter.
His main nemesis on the night was lead off hitter Tyler Sibley who went 3-3 on the night with a walk and HBP. Sibley got it going early as he started off the bottom of the first and second innings with singles and runs scored. Sibley was no where close to being done as he went deep to left field in the sixth for his first homerun of the season. The only Bobcat hitters that had a good night were Bret Atwood and Kyle Kubitza the DH. Paul Goldschmidt also put up a quality night with 3 RBI's.
The story of the night however was the pitching performance by Zach Tritz. Tritz went a complete 8 innings giving up 2 runs and striking out 8 while only walking one batter. Tritz got off to a nice start in the early half of the game, only really getting into trouble a few times on the night and able to work his way out of most of the situations. Tritz showed good command of his off speed pitches on Thursday and had a deadly curve working all night that kept the Boilermakers off balance. Tritz also got some defensive help with a few good plays happening behind him.
A brilliant diving catch was made early on a sac bunt, when the Boilermakers were trying to get something started, by third baseman Loftin. Tritz moved his record to 3-0 and dropped his ERA under his already stellar ERA that started under 2.00 on the night. Tritz also notched the first win for the Bobcats at the new stadium and the first home win of the year, he also gets the first win over Purdue for the Texas State Bobcats.
The series continues this Saturday and Sunday as the teams finish up the latter part of the three game series. We'll have updates from those game and you can listen to all the action on txstatebobcats.com.
Will McGinnis- KTSW Sports Staff Writer
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