ABILENE, Texas – It took nearly five hours, but McMurry University secured a series-opening win against Howard Payne with a rare walk-off hit-by-pitch at Walt Driggers Field late Thursday night.
Tied 7-7 after nine innings, a regular finish became all but an April Fools' joke.
McMurry's senior closer Sam Hillyer and Howard Payne's Xavier Haines were locked into an extra inning pitcher's duel, keeping the game scoreless into the 14th inning.
Freshman Dylan Schafer took over in the 14th and dealt two scoreless frames, allowing the War Hawks to have their chance to walk it off. With a new pitcher entering for Haines after 6.2 scoreless innings, McMurry started a rally with a Mike Gonzales single.
A hit batter and an intentional walk to Hillyer loaded the bases with one out, bringing up Christian Oliver. Oliver took a pitch to the hip and flipped his bat toward the home dugout in celebration as McMurry accomplished the walk-off hit-by-pitch – scoring Mike Gonzales.
McMurry had three players with at least three hits, led by Gonzales with a 4-for-7 game. Hillyer finished 3-for-7, while freshman Josh De La Rosa went 3-for-6. Freshman Reed Hodges led the team with three RBI – two of which came on an eighth inning go-ahead single and one from a groundout.
Junior Nick Hamel tied both a school and American Southwest Conference record with eight at-bats, joining teammate Javier Rosa (2/15/20) and Greg Erickson (4/2/03) as holders of the record. HPU's Nolyn Box also tied the ASC record.
As a team, McMurry fell one at-bat short of a single-game school record with 58 – with the record coming in last year's 16-inning showdown against St. Thomas (TX). Both teams stranded a combined 38 runners – 20 for HPU and 18 for McMurry.
McMurry fell behind 6-0 after three innings, but summoned freshman Kaden Sebastian. The rookie lefty allowed one run through 5.0 innings while scattering four hits, helping the War Hawks work back into the game in the late innings.
The War Hawks scattered runs for five straight innings – one in the fourth and the fifth, two in the sixth, one in the seventh and two to take the lead in the eighth.
Hodges and Hillyer started the rally with an RBI groundout and RBI single, respectively, then Javier Rosa joined in the fifth with an RBI double. Later in the fifth, a bases-loaded walk to Ryan Potter brought home Jonah Bailey.
Gonzales and Hodges each had RBI hits in the seventh and eighth innings, bringing the War Hawks all the way back into the game and with the lead with seven unanswered. HPU evened it back up in the ninth by scoring on a wild pitch, then shut down the bats in the bottom half to force extra innings.
Pitchers of record:
W – Dylan Schafer (1-0)
L – Jasen Hollingsworth (0-1)
The War Hawks will look to take the series on Friday afternoon at 1 p.m. in a doubleheader.
