It was supposed to be a day the Mary Hardin-Baylor Crusaders celebrated that strikeout - the 187th in the career of pitcher R.B. Garza, breaking the school record previously held by Bill Pearce.
And while Garza added eight more to bring his total to 195, the Crusaders weren’t celebrating as they ended up on the short end of the contest.
Three home runs by Troy product Josh Fredrick helped the Crusaders roll to a 13-4 win over Schreiner in the first game of an American Southwest Conference baseball doubleheader on Saturday.
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But the Mountaineers rallied for a 10-8, 11-inning win in the second game, putting a damper on Garza’s history-making day and preventing a three-game series sweep for UMHB.
“It means something to me,” he said of the record. “It means a lot to me, but the main goal for us is to win. We gave it all we had and came up short.”
Fredrick’s single-game performance looked to be setting the stage for a celebration of what was anticipated to be a day of honoring Garza’s career performance.
After Derek Draeger was hit by a pitch in a scoreless second inning, Fredrick cranked one to the left of the 365-foot sign in left field for a 2-0 lead. Then with the Crusaders (18-12 overall, 9-6 ASC) up 5-4 entering the fifth, Draeger walked and Frederick hit his second home run just inches of where the first one was. And he capped the day with a solo shot to the right of the 365 mark.
“I’ve never even had a game where I hit two home runs,” Fredrick said. “I was just seeing the ball real well and getting a good swing. My teammates have really been picking me up the last couple of weeks because I’ve been struggling and I just felt like it was my time to step up.”
But the second act was slow to get going. Garza got the first two outs easily, one with a strikeout, leaving him one short of tying the record. But then he allowed four consecutive singles, one batter reached on an error and another hit a double to give the Mountaineers a 5-0 lead in the first.
“Last week (against Texas Lutheran), I kind of did the same thing and I was, ‘Oh, no, here we go again,’” Garza said. “I talked to myself on the mound and told myself, ‘I have to get comfortable and get going.’ I just had to get out of that inning and completely start over and treat it like I was going out there for the first time.”
He ended the inning by striking out Eric Crenwelge, then had to wait until the third to make history after all the outs in the second were fielding outs.
But before he got to the third, the Crusaders offense gave him the lead as Draeger, Michael Garza, Seth Lynn and Ryan Moreau hit consecutive singles and Kyle Flynn walked. After the Mountaineers got the first out, Andrew White singled and Joseph Villegas walked, then after the second out Draeger cleared the bases with a double, giving the Crusaders a 7-5 lead after two innings.
Then Garza took the mound and Mann stepped in. Mann never stood a chance. Neither did J.D. Escobar or Rogelio Chavez, who both struck out in the inning as well.
“R.B. is a competitive individual,” UMHB coach Micah Wells said. “Was he thinking about (the record)? Absolutely it’s on his mind, but I don’t think it changed anything he did.”
And once he got out of the opening inning, he was hard to touch.
He held a 7-6 lead entering the ninth, and the Crusaders looked ready to seal the series sweep as Garza got an easy ground out to start the inning.
Michael Houser then singled to right, which looked like it would be harmless as Oliver Stogsdill hit a sharp ground ball right to second baseman Michael Garza, R.B.’s younger brother. Though he had to move quickly to his left, the younger Garza was in position to make the stop and would have had plenty of time to start the double play, but the ball turned slightly in and hit off Garza’s foot and into center field, allowing Houser to advance to third.
The next batter, Eric Bukowski, also hit a shot to second. Garza this time bobbled it lightly as he fielded it and had to just settle for the out at first as Houser scored.
The elder Garza shook off the incident.
“I’m going to be a little bit frustrated,” he admitted. “But it could have been anyone; it happened to be my brother. I know he’s not trying to not turn that double play. I know he gave it all he had. Sometimes it just takes a bad hop or comes up short. It’ll be OK.”
But the game went to extra innings, where reliever Hunter Hawkins took the loss in the 11th. He walked the first two batters of the inning and Oscar Ibieta blasted a home run to left, giving Schreiner a 10-7 lead.
The Crusaders made it interesting in the bottom of the inning, though. Alfredo Melendez walked, then White singled and Villegas walked to load the bases with no outs.
That brought Fredrick to the plate. But all he could do was hit a sacrifice fly to center to score Melendez. And the Mountaineers got the win by getting Draeger to ground into a double play.
“I was just trying to put the ball in play,” Fredrick said. “If you go up trying to hit a home runs you’ll have a hard time and strike out. So I was just trying to put ball in play and I did that. It wasn’t the result I wanted, but it happens.”
Added Wells: “It’s never over until you get that last out. We had our opportunities and had a chance to score. Josh is good kid and he’s going to win a lot of ballgames for us, but you know I’m pretty sure he’d give all those (first-game home runs) up for an RBI single in that second ballgame.
“We win two out of three and aren’t happy. I think that speaks volumes for how far this program has come. We are all about winning. It doesn’t matter if they go 0-for-4 or 4-for-4; if we don’t win they aren’t happy with their performance, and each one of them feels like there’s something else they could have done to win the ballgame.”
The Crusaders will be at Trinity for a non-conference game on Tuesday in San Antonio, then return to ASC action with a three-game series at Concordia Texas beginning at 7 p.m. Thursday.
