TCU Baseball Sweeps Manhattan
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FORT WORTH, Texas – The TCU Horned Frogs completed the series sweep with an 11-0 victory over Manhattan Sunday afternoon at Lupton Stadium. Four Frog pitchers combined on TCU’s fourth shutout of the season with Trey Teakell notching his first career victory.
Stefan Crichton pitched three scoreless innings, giving up a hit, a walk and striking out one in the no-decision. Teakell (1-2) threw four scoreless innings to earn the win in relief. He allowed two hits and struck out three. Tyler Duffie worked a perfect eighth inning and fanned one. Justin Scharf struck out two around a pair of hits in the ninth.
The Frogs took advantage of a pair of lead-off walks in the first to take a 2-0 lead. Kyle Von Tungeln and Josh Elander drew the free passes and then executed a double steal. With one out, Jantzen Witte hit a ground ball to third to give the Frogs a 1-0 lead. Kevin Cron followed with a run-scoring single to drive in Elander with the second run of the game.
Manhattan looked poised to get back into the game as it had runners on first and third following a walk and base hit to open the inning. Joe McClennan bounced into a 5-4-3 double play then Crichton struck out Joe Rock to strand the runner at third, preserving the 2-0 lead.
TCU found some two-out magic in the second inning to extend the lead to 4-0. With Von Tungeln standing on first, Elander launched his second home run of the weekend over the left field fence to drive in two more runs.
A five-run third inning put the Frogs firmly in control with a 9-0 lead. The parade of
batters started with a Zac Jordan one-out single. He stole second ahead of a walk to Brance Rivera. Davy Wright laid a sacrifice bunt, but the throw to first sailed wide, allowing Jordan to score from second. With Rivera and Wright in scoring position, Keaton Jones executed a suicide squeeze that plated a pair of runs to make it a 7-0 ballgame. With the bases empty, the Jaspers’ issued back-to-back walks and an infield single to load the bases. Jantzen Witte bounced a single through the right side to drive in two more runs for a 9-0 lead.
Both pitchers threw up zeros on the scoreboard through the middle innings before the Frogs broke through again in the bottom of the seventh. TCU sent eight men to the plate and scored twice.
A walk to Axel Johnson got the Frogs rolling as he moved to second on a Josh Gonzales base hit to left. A walk to Brett Johnson loaded the bases for Caleb St. Laurent. The pinch-hitter delivered an RBI single to center to give TCU a 10-0 lead. A balk allowed the final run of the game to score.
The sweep pushes the Horned Frogs’ record to 26-15 overall. TCU will continue its homestand on Tuesday night when it plays host to Oklahoma. Game time against the Sooners is set for 6:30 p.m.
