KINGSVILLE – Nehwon Norkeh smashed a grand slam and
Paxton DeLaGarza hit his second home run of the season and drove in three runs to help lead the Angelo State baseball team to an 11-3 Lone Star Conference win over Texas A&M-Kingsville in the series finale on Monday at Nolan Ryan Field.
The Rams (19-7, 9-6, LSC) avoided being swept in the four-game series with the win and also snapped a nine-game winning streak by the Javelinas (18-8, 12-3 LSC) who are now 15-3 on their home field this season and are out to a four-game advantage in the LSC standings after taking the four-game series over ASU which was one game back coming into the weekend.
"Winning this one game could come back to be huge for us, but we have to start hitting and playing better to get back in the standings," ASU head coach
Kevin Brooks said. "I thought our starting pitching was awesome for us the entire series, but our defense gave them some runs and we weren't able to execute with our bats in the first three games. We got down again in this game, but we responded with some disciplined at-bats where we weren't trying to do too much and force things. We've been struggling to hit the ball the way we are capable of the past three weeks so hopefully having a game like this can get us going again."
Angelo State trailed 3-1 going into the fifth inning but used an eight-hit, eight-run fifth inning to take command of the series finale. Norkeh, who led off the inning with a single through the middle of the infield, scored the first run of the frame on a DeLaGarza single to center field. Norkeh would watch from the dugout as
Cameron Massengill scored the third run of the game on a
Brett David single through the left-side of the infield and then saw
Jarryd Klemm drive in another run on a single to left. With
Sam Kohler at third, Klemm at second and
David Goggin at first, Norkeh came up for the second time in the inning. On an 0-2 count and two outs, Norkeh drilled a pitch over the left-field fence for the first grand slam of his career and the fifth home run of the season.
"He's one of the most important parts to our lineup and it was huge for him to have a hit like that in that situation," Brooks said. "Nehwon's been scuffling like most of our team has been the past couple of series so he needed that. He's one of the best hitters in the conference and we need him to produce big-time at-bats like that for us."
With a 9-3 lead, DeLaGarza led off the sixth inning with his second home run of the season and series for the Rams who would go on to tack on another run in the seventh on a Massengill fielder's choice RBI that brought in
Hunter Spear from third. ASU, which had been stifled throughout the series against TAMUK, finished the game with 17 hits. Norkeh and DeLaGarza each had three hits in the game, while
Derek Tyner and Goggin each had two hits.
Dillon Becker (2-0) earned the win for the Rams after striking out three and not allowing a run in 2 1/3 innings of relief of starter
Matt Shannon who went 3 1/3 innings in his first start of the season. Shannon shined through the first three innings by not allowing a run before the Javelinas scored three in the fourth. Shannon finished the game with four strikeouts, one walk and allowed three runs on four hits.
Graylon Brown took the ball and completed the game with 3 1/3 innings of work where he struck out three and allowed no runs and only one hit in one of his strongest relief outings of the season.
Norkeh now has nine home runs in his career at ASU and leads the conference with five, while DeLaGarza is hitting .408 on the season after going 8-for-15 (.533) with two home runs and four RBI in the four-game series against the Javelinas. DeLaGarza is second in the conference in hitting, while Snyder is now third with a .398 average after going 4-for-15 (.267) over the four games in Kingsville. Tyner hit two doubles and had four hits, while David had three hits. Goggin, who had missed the entire season due to an injury, started all four games for the Rams and had two hits and scored a run in his first action of his junior season.
The Rams also snapped their four-game losing streak with the win and are now 4-5 away from home this season. ASU had not lost back-to-back games all season before dropping the first three games of the series and will now look to bounce back in the conference race when it travels to Portales, New Mexico next weekend for a four-game series against Eastern New Mexico at Greyhound Field. Â
