TCU Baseball Completes Sweep Of Air Force
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USAF Academy, Colo. – The TCU Horned Frogs completed the sweep of Air Force with a 6-1 victory Sunday afternoon at Falcon Field. Senior left fielder Jason Coats hit a pair of milestones in the victory as he tallied his 300th career hit and his 200th career RBI.
Stefan Crichton (6-2) tossed seven innings to pick up the win. He allowed a run on six hits, walked two and struck out four. Justin Scharf struck out one and allowed an infield single in his lone inning of work. Kevin Allen pitched around a pair of hits, getting a strike out and a double play ball to end the game.
Crichton wiggled out of trouble in the third inning as the Falcons threatened to take their first lead of the weekend. Matthew Roberts doubled off the right field wall with one out and was standing on third with two outs. Adam Hill worked a walk to put runners on the corners, but Crichton was able to get out of trouble with a ground ball to third.
After going down in order in each of the first three innings, the Horned Frog bats came to life in the fourth. Josh Elander was standing on first with one out when Coats doubled to left field to put two runners in scoring position. Kevin Cron gave the Frogs a 1-0 lead with a sacrifice fly to center. Jerrick Suiter followed with a bloop single to center and Derek Odell doubled to drive in two more runs for a 3-0 lead.
The Frogs tacked on a pair of runs to their lead in the top of the fifth. Keaton Jones led off the inning with a base hit to center field. After stealing second, he moved to third on an infield single off the bat of Elander. Coats lined a single through the right side to drive in Jones. A miscue on the infield on a ball hit by Jantzen Witte allowed Elander to score to make it a 5-0 ballgame.
Air Force looked like it might climb back in the game in the sixth as Blair Roberts worked a lead-off walk. A one-out double by Garrett Custons had two runners in scoring position. Crichton worked out of the jam, getting a foul out off the bat of David Thomas then struck out Alex Bast to end the inning without any runs crossing the plate.
TCU extended its lead to 6-0 in the top of the seventh, picking up a run on pair of hits. Elander worked a one-out walk and moved to second on a Coats ground out. Witte lined a single to left center to drive in Elander.
Seth Kline broke up the shutout with one swing of the bat to lead off the seventh. He hit his fifth home run of the season over the right field fence to make it a 6-1 contest.
TCU improves to 32-16 overall and 16-5 in league play. The Frogs will wrap up the road portion of the regular season Tuesday night when they travel north to take on Oklahoma. Game time against the Sooners in Norman is set for 6:30 p.m.
