GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. – The top-ranked Colorado Mesa baseball team split a doubleheader with the visiting New Mexico Highlands Cowboys on Friday afternoon at Suplizio Field. The Mavericks record now stands at 33-8 and 21-6 in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, three games up for first place.
In game one, freshman right hander
Andrew Morris was nearly unhittable in a 3-2 win for Colorado Mesa in the day's opening game that took just an hour and twenty-one minutes.
Morris (2-1) didn't allow a hit until Carlos Ramirez reached on a Bermuda triangle ball to left center, just out of the reach of a fully extended
Caleb Farmer. Morris finished the game allowing two runs on two hits, walked four and struck out 11 in six and two-thirds innings.
Colorado Mesa hasn't thrown a no-hitter since left hander Luke Cheever no-hit Colorado School of Mines back in 2006.
The freshman now has 29 strikeouts and allowed just five hits in his last 19 innings pitched, a span of three games.
Senior
Will Dixon came on to record the final out and pick up his fifth save of the season.
The Mavericks got on the board in the first inning on a two-run home run by
Jordan Stubbings to make it 2-0 early.
Spencer Bramwell drove in an important insurance run in the bottom of the third inning, driving in Stubbings.
In the nightcap, Colorado Mesa clubbed four home runs, but the comeback fell just a run short in a 7-6 loss to Highlands. Cowboy Carlos Ramirez hammered a pair of three home runs and nearly single handily won the game for the visitors.
The Mavericks fell behind 7-1 before scoring five unanswered runs.
Josh Shapiro and
Hunter Douglas smoked back-to-back solo shots in the fifth inning to make it 7-3. Just an inning later,
Chase Hamilton hit his second home run of the season, a two-run shot to left field with
Hunter Douglas hitting his second home run of the game just two batters later. But, that was all the closer the Mavericks would get.
Garrett Hutson took his first loss of the season in the game.
The two teams will close out the series tomorrow at noon with a single nine-inning game at Suplizio Field.
