HOUSTON – The Sam Houston Bearkats have a history of dramatics at Minute Maid Park, and Sunday added to that as the Kats got a walk-off RBI double in the 10
th inning to down No. 13 TCU, 6-5, in the finale of the Shriners Hospitals for Children Classic.
The win gave the Kats (3-5) a winning record on the weekend and an all-time winning record in the Classic with this season being the team's third appearance, all since 2014.
Sam Houston trailed the Horned Frogs (8-3), 3-0, after three innings before the offense really got going, scoring two runs in the fourth and three in the seventh before the game-winner in the 10
th.
Lance Lusk got his first career start and struck out four while allowing just one earned run in 5.0 innings, but it was
Alex Havlicek who got the win with 2.2 innings of 1-hit relief.
Garrett Wright was the losing pitcher for TCU, facing just three batters in the 10
th inning. Offensively, TCU finished with nine hits, led by three with multi-hit games and Brayden Taylor's two RBI.
The Kats, meanwhile, got 2-hit games from four players, with
Trent Touchet turning in a big day, going 2-for-4 with a 2-run triple in the seventh that gave the Kats a 5-4 lead. He also drew a leadoff walk to open the 10
th with pinch runner
Erick Davila coming around to score on Chadwick's heroics.
It was just Chadwick's second at-bat of the game, having struck out earlier in a pinch-hit opportunity, but he jumped on the second pitch he saw off of Wright with Davila standing on second base, lining it off the left-center field wall to walk it off.
Sam Houston was its own worst enemy in the early innings, committing three of its four errors in the first three innings as the Horned Frogs went up 3-0. But a 2-run single by
Corbin Vines in the bottom of the fourth got the Kats on the board.
TCU added a run in the sixth to go back up 4-2 and looked to have that lead in hand in the seventh as reliever Haylen Green was one strike away from his third straight clean inning; however,
Christian Smith and
Jack Rogers singled to keep the inning alive and
Blake Faecher made it a 4-3 game with an RBI single of his own. One batter later Touchet shot a ball into center field that fell under the glove of Phillip Sikes, scoring a pair and putting Touchet on third base with a 2-run triple that gave the Kats a 5-4 lead.
A 1-out double by Conner Shepherd in the eighth got TCU going again, however, and an error on the play put him on third to set the table for Zach Humphreys who delivered a sacrifice fly to knot the game at 5-5.
The teams traded zeros in the ninth and Havlicek worked around a leadoff walk in the 10
th to keep TCU off the board and set the stage for the Kats in extra innings.
Sam Houston will now take another shot at a ranked opponent for the third consecutive game on Tuesday at No. 19 Texas. First pitch is set for 6:30 p.m. and will be aired on the Longhorn Network.
