For the first time in over a month, the Texas State Bobcats have won a weekend series after an early offensive surge led to an 8-3 victory against the Arkansas State Red Wolves Saturday evening at Tomlinson Stadium-Slayton Family Field in Jonesboro, Ark.
The Bobcats (30-21, 12-14 SBC) won their third straight affair and first 30-win season in three years after an early barrage of runs was simply too much for the Red Wolves (28-21, 11-15 SBC) to keep up. Combined with sophomore pitcher Cade Smith and co. keeping the Arkansas State bats at bay, limiting them to three runs on seven hits while striking out eight combined, Texas State won their sixth straight overall against the Red Wolves going back to 2024.
The first inning saw the Bobcats continue their momentum from Friday night’s opening win with a five-run spot right from the go. Freshman catcher Clayton Namken started the scoring with an RBI double, tacked on with junior second basemen Justin Vossos driving home an additional two runs. Senior third basemen Chase Mora capped off the inning by driving in the team’s 87th home run of the season with a two-run bomb into right.
Mora’s eighth home run of the season tied the single season program record for home runs in a season by the team, matching 2022’s total.
The Bobcats chased off Red Wolves sophomore starting pitcher Tyler Weimer following the first inning and faced freshman Houston Tomlinson in the second. Texas State extended their lead with two runs, both via RBI singles from juniors Jaquae Stewart and Bennett Fryman.
In the fourth, Arkansas State chipped into the deficit with back-to-back home runs off the bats of freshman first basemen Derek Martinez and sophomore second basemen Lane Walton. They added in another run via a sacrifice fly from sophomore centerfielder Ashton Quiller, making it 7-3.
After the fourth, both offenses struggled to get on base. In the seventh, the Bobcats added their final run into the game when graduate reliever Kole Turner fielded a chopped ball from Fryman and hurriedly threw to first, bouncing it off the ground and going past Martinez into foul grounds as Namken, who reached second base off his second double of the night, scored standing up.
The Red Wolves bats were silenced and as of result, Texas State finally took their first weekend series since their matchup against Georgia Southern from April 2-3. The Bobcats now sit tied for eighth in the conference, with a chance to dig themselves out of potentially playing themselves out of the first round part of the bracket as they sit just a game behind Marshall and Louisiana-Lafayette.
The Bobcats will look to close their final SBC away series at 11 a.m. tomorrow, May 10 at Tomlinson Stadium-Slayton Family Field.
