Coming in with a seven-game losing streak in conference play, Temple got back on the winning track in a big way as it used solid pitching, productive hitting and errorless defense to beat Ranger 10-3 and 16-3.
With their first doubleheader sweep since mid-March, the Leopards (19-18) moved to 9-9 in the Northern Texas Junior College Athletic Conference, giving them at least a share of the league’s fourth and final berth in the NJCAA Region V Tournament.
“We played pretty good today, and the big thing was to get back on a positive note,” said McMurtry, whose team went 0-4 against first-place Grayson County last week. “We were trying to get a positive outlook, and we said, ‘Our season starts today. We’re 0-0. We’ve got 16 conference games left, and we need to win 12, 13, 14, as many as we can.’
“We played hard today, and now the big thing is to take this momentum and build on it with the two home games on Saturday.”
After its pitching staff was battered for 50 hits and 52 runs by Grayson, TC got much better results on the mound Wednesday.
In the seven-inning first game, Daniel Meadows (3-3) allowed one run in five innings and Hunter Scott threw the last two innings in a five-hitter. Courtney Behrend (4-0) went the distance in the scheduled nine-inning finale, scattering seven hits in a game ended after seven by the mercy rule.
The opener was tied 1-1 in the fourth when TC broke it open with three runs, led by two errors, Tabor Smith’s run-scoring double and Payton Wisener’s RBI single. The Leopards added three more runs in the fifth and Smith hit a three-run home run in the seventh.
Ranger (16-19, 9-9), which entered the day tied with Weatherford and Hill for second place, scored two runs in the finale’s fifth inning to cut TC’s lead to 4-3. But the Leopards blew it open with a nine-run sixth, paced by three hit batters and run-scoring hits by Will Sandifer, Mike Lowery, Nick Anders, Garrett Bivone, Johnathon Moore and Matt Loughrey.
Tristan Gaines and Paul Spinn are Temple’s scheduled starting pitchers for its home doubleheader with Ranger at 1 p.m. Saturday.
