Kingsville's rally upends Hounds

Eastern New Mexico University's chances of reaching the Lone Star Conference baseball tournament took another major hit on Friday night.

Leading 6-2 through six innings, the Greyhounds saw Texas A&M-Kingsville score four runs after the first two hitters were out in the seventh and four more in the eighth for a 10-6 victory in the opener of a four-game series at Greyhound Field.

ENMU (19-22, 6-15), which lost its sixth in a row, fell into a tie for the LSC cellar with Cameron and now trail four teams — including Kingsville (28-15, 11-10) — who are tied for third. Six of the eight LSC teams make it to the conference meet.

The teams are scheduled for a pair of seven-inning contests today, starting at 2 p.m., with a nine-inning single game at noon on Sunday.

Catcher Jacob Rogers capped a five-run ENMU third with a grand slam, his fourth home run of the season, and the Hounds got a two-out RBI single from Brett Ackerman in the fifth to make it 6-2.

Senior right-hander Jas Shergill breezed into the seventh with a five-hitter, and he got right fielder Chris Ballou on a groundout and catcher Cash Barker on strikes to start the inning. That's when things quickly took a turn south.

A hit batsman and two singles made it 6-3, and runners moved up on an outfield throwing error. Travis Laird then hit a two-run double, took third on a single by Joe Tallerine and scored when Rogers' pickoff throw to first was errant.

In the eighth against senior right-hander Ryan Pruitt (5-4), two errors helped set the Javelinas up again. Ryan Guedry doubled home the go-ahead run, Matt Perez had an RBI infield single, James Black hit a run-scoring single to center and Laird knocked in another run with an infield hit.

Cody Williams (4-3) went 3 2/3 innings in relief of Kingsville starter Dallas Ponder, allowing just one hit with two walks and four strikeouts.