Eastern New Mexico Baseball | 03.26.2016 | David Norton | Photo by Claude Vigil | Post Game Interview with Michael Holliday and Alec Lemmon (CLICK HERE)
PORTALES, N.M. — Despite a doubleheader loss, Matt Holiday and Alec Lemmon had not only the best performances of their young careers on the mound, but had two of the best performances on the season for the Eastern New Mexico Baseball team Saturday against No. 18 West Texas A&M.
In the first contest Holliday held the Buffs scoreless through 6.1 innings before being relieved. The second contest saw Lemmon throw a complete game while giving up only three hits and one earned run. Unfortunately for the Greyhounds (9-21, 2-14 LSC), who would themselves go scoreless against the Buffs (23-7, 12-4 LSC), the day would end with a 2-0 loss followed by a 1-0 loss.
Greyhound head coach David Gomez said, "We are really proud of them, they both did a great job today. WT is a great team and they both held them there and kept us in it from the mound. For those two guys, just 18 years old, to do what they did is very impressive."
Between the two teams there were only 17 hits combined across the two games. ENMU recorded six in the first and two in the second, while West Texas had six followed by three.
"First off, I want to give a lot of credit to WT – they are very good and deserve the ranking. But we feel like we are in a good spot, trying to put all the pieces together," said Gomez. "Once we start putting them together we can be one of those teams."
Daniel Ward led the team on the day with three hits, hitting a perfect 1.000 in the first contest. Playing at short stop, Wards return marked his first appearance in five games.
"Obviously Dan getting three hits in the first game after missing as much time as he did was really big for us. He played phenomenal defense, along with our entire team. We are starting to put the youth out there and they are playing well for us," said Gomez.
GAME ONE
The first game of the doubleheader saw Holliday battle it out from the mound with the Buffs ace, Austin Moore. Moore finished the day striking out 12 batters and allowing four hits.
Through seven innings both teams remained scoreless, forcing extra innings. The eighth again saw zeros up on the board for both teams, until finally, in the top of the ninth, the Buffs put up two runs, in part due to a walk and a wild pitch.
The Greyhounds mounted a comeback though, hitting two singles with one out and then advancing both runners with the next out bat. It wasn't meant to be though, as a blooper to short centerfield that looked like it would drop was scooped up by a diving Buff.
The Greyhounds had other chances, with perhaps their best coming in the bottom of the seventh when they had the bases loaded with only one out. The aforementioned starter for the Buffs, Moore, had other plans as he went on to strike out the next two at bats, forcing the extra innings.
GAME TWO
In Lemmon's start, his only mistake of the day came facing his first batter when West Texas jumped on a fastball to get a leadoff double. A sac bunt followed by a fly out to center field would score the runner – not normally an issue except when it would be the only score of the ball game.
After the one run first by the Buffs, both teams went cold from the plate and would witness seven straight scoreless innings. West Texas ended the matchup with three hits to Eastern's two.
In another dramatic ending, the Greyhounds put a runner on with one out in the bottom of the seventh. Again though, the Buffs would sit both of the next batters down, giving Eastern no chance of a comeback.
