Over the course of 17 days, the UTSA baseball team played hard, but their efforts weren’t matched with comparable victories as they won only three of the 12 games in which they competed. The Roadrunners are now ranked 11th in the Southland Conference with Lamar trailing behind.
UTSA’s disappointing run began March 9th with a three-game series against A&M Corpus Christi (A&M-CC) on the Islanders’ turf. The first game resulted in the Islanders defeating the Runners 6-3.
Adam Hoelscher earned the win for Corpus Christi with eight innings pitched; he gave up two runs on six hits. Casey Selsor was given the loss for UTSA after pitching six innings and giving up five runs on six hits.
The next day proved favorable for UTSA as they won with a final score of 7-2. The Roadrunners excelled after shortstop R.J. Perucki batted in three runs to clench the victory.
Unfortunately, the final game of the series on March 11 worked in A&M-CC’s favor, and the Islanders took the win after Daniel Minor gave up just four hits. The Roadrunners fought valiantly with Michael Kraft, going seven innings and only giving up one run, but unfortunately, the loss gets credited to him. The final score was 1-0.
The respective games on March 13 and 14 at San Antonio’s Wolff Stadium both ended in the opponents’ favors. On March 13, UTSA suffered a loss to TCU after the Horned Frogs scored four runs in the top of the 12th to move away from the three-run tie they shared with the Roadrunners. With winning pitcher Patrick Veerkamp, Notre Dame beat UTSA after scoring 12 runs with one error on March 14. Six of those runs occurred in the third inning. UTSA had no runs and committed four errors.
After a one-day break, UTSA returned to the field for the first of a three-game conference series against Northwestern State. NWSU was the victor with a score of 9-4 in the first game. The winning pitcher, Colin Bear, gave up four runs on eight hits and beat Casey Selsor, who gave up seven runs on four hits. The second game of the series proved to be an exciting match as the two teams scored a combined 37 runs, but NWSU clinched the 20-17 win with a nine-run fourth inning, which bested UTSA’s seven-run third inning. In the last game of the series, the Roadrunners finally proved victorious and beat the Demons in a run-ruled eight innings with a score of 13-3.
On March 20, the Roadrunners traveled to Houston to take on the seventh-ranked Rice Owls. However, their efforts were in vain as Rice beat UTSA after a five-run second inning. The final score was 9-1.
The stretch of games ended with UTSA traveling to Nacogdoches to play the Lumberjacks of Stephen F. Austin (SFA) March 23-25. For the first game, both starting pitchers, Casey Selsor for UTSA and Cameron Gann for SFA, threw a complete game for their teams. Selsor was given the loss despite throwing eight innings with seven hits, two strikeouts and four runs given up. Gann received the win by going nine innings and giving up one run on six hits with three strikeouts. The second game of the series lasted 11 innings after the teams were tied at three, but SFA slid past UTSA by scoring the winning run in the bottom of the 11th. UTSA avoided a series sweep with a 7-3 win thanks to five runs in the top of the second during the third game on March 25. UTSA’s Michael Kraft got the win after pitching all nine innings and giving up only three runs on 10 hits.
UTSA’s next game will be Tuesday, March 27, against Texas-Pan American. The Roadrunners will host the Broncos at Roadrunner Field at 6 p.m.
