Eastern New Mexico Baseball | 03.05.16 | David Norton | Photo By Claude Vigil
PORTALES, N.M. — The Eastern New Mexico baseball team saw a good outing on the mound from J'Daylin Jackson but couldn't manage to hang on for the win, losing both games of their doubleheader against Angelo State Saturday, 13-3 and 8-3.
Jackson threw six innings in the second game of the doubleheader, and while he gave up two runs to the Rams (10-6, 3-0 LSC) early, the starter settled down and threw four shutout innings. This gave the Greyhounds (7-10, 0-3 LSC) a chance to come back and even take the lead, 3-2 in the bottom of the third.
Assistant coach Brett Merritt said, "Jackson had a great start for us, probably one of his best of the year. Through the course of the season he has been our most dependable guy. We knew from the start he was going to give us a great outing and he did up until the very end there."
A run by the Rams in the fourth would tie the score at three all and the following two and a half-innings would see both teams go scoreless. Disaster would strike for Eastern in the top of the seventh though, as Angelo would put up five runs to end the game 8-5.
In the Greyhounds first outing of the day, ENMU would again have to dig deep into their bullpen, ultimately throwing four pitchers in seven innings. The Greyhounds would make it a close game early, as they scored three runs in the bottom of the third to cut the Rams lead in half, 6-3.
A resilient Angelo State team would continue to score though, putting up runs in each of the next four innings to win by a final score of 13-3.
Tregra Williams finished the day with four hits to lead the Hounds from the plate. Dylan Nault, Justin Paul and Paul Tapia each recorded two hits in the second game, while Jordan Wesley was the only Eastern player besides Williams to record a hit in both games.
"Whoever is taking the mound for us just needs to be ready to go," said Merritt. "Seeing as how it is the last game of the series, it's all hands on deck and our guys just have to be ready to go."
The greyhounds will take the field for the final game in the series Sunday against the Rams, with the first pitch scheduled for 1 p.m. (MT).
