UTA Baseball Loses To No. 18 OK State
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ARLINGTON, Texas – UT Arlington turned in its best performance of the weekend, but it still wasn’t enough in Sunday’s 4-3 loss to No. 18 Oklahoma State at Clay Gould Ballpark.
The Mavericks dropped to 0-3 before a lively crowd of 828 fans to conclude the UTA Invitational. The Cowboys remained perfect at 3-0.
Though the Mavericks lost, UT Arlington coach Darin Thomas saw progress from his team.
“I was proud of the effort,” Thomas said. “They responded. We came up just, but that’s the best we played all weekend.”
Junior college transfer Jess Amedee made his first start for UTA and went 6.1 innings, giving up four earned runs on five hits and three walks. The right hander struck out four and had successful pickoffs in each of the first two innings.
“It felt great,” Amedee said of his UTA debut. “It was tough to be in the dugout the first two days.”
The dormant UTA offense of the first two days didn’t need long to get cranked up against the Cowboys with a run in each of the first two innings. The Mavericks went at least four scoreless innings in
each of their first two games.
“I thought we hit some balls hard that I thought hung up in the wind,” Thomas said. “I was really proud of our pitchers. Jess did a great job in his first Division I start. Everybody that pitched in relief did great.
“We made a run at them. We just came up short.”
UTA finished with eight hits. Derek Miller, Darien McLemore and Peter Cuomo each had two hits for the Mavericks.
Miller led the bottom of the first off against OSU with a single, moved to second on a sac bunt and later scored on Matt Shortall’s sharp single to left. Cuomo drove home McLemore in the second with a hit up the middle to give the Mavericks a 2-1 lead.
The Cowboys tied the game 1-1 in the second on Gage Green’s RBI single and took a 3-2 with two runs in the fourth. Amedee (0-1) was pulled in the seventh with one out and a runner at third.
The Mavericks came back in the bottom of the seventh with a run to narrow the gap to 4-3. McLemore opened the inning with a double and scored on Cuomo’s single. Cuomo, as the tying run, was stranded at third.
The Mavericks are back in action Tuesday night at Baylor.
