CANYON – The Angelo State baseball team is in a must-win situation at the Lone Star Conference Championships following a 12-0 loss to West Texas A&M on Friday at Wilder Park.

The Rams (33-18), who surrendered seven runs in the ninth inning against the Buffs, will look to stave off elimination from the tournament at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday against Tarleton State. The Texans, which won the LSC regular-season title, are coming off a 4-1 win over Incarnate Word in its tournament opener.

“We are disappointed in this loss, but we have to put it behind us really quickly here in tournament play,” ASU senior Andrew LaCombe said. “We made too many easy outs tonight and we can't afford to give away outs with pop flies and strikeouts.”

BOX SCORE

West Texas A&M's Dylan James (5-2) struck out 12 Rams in a five-hit complete-game win. James, who struck out 14 in the regular-season meeting between the two teams threw 130 pitches and only walked two.  

“He's a really good pitcher, but we didn't help ourselves out with our pitch selection and not getting on top of the ball,” ASU head coach Kevin Brooks said. “We're going to have to do a lot better job of competing in the strike zone.”

Jake Feckley (9-4) received the loss after allowing three earned runs on nine hits in 6.2 innings of work. Feckley struck out two and walked two in a game which was a pitcher's duel early on. WT scored its first run of the game in the top of the second and then tacked on two more in the fourth and seventh before erupting for seven in the ninth for the blowout win.

Reggie Rodriguez led the Rams with two hits, including an eighth-inning triple for the lone extra-base hit on the night for ASU. Quaid McKinnon, Christian Summers and LaCombe each added singles for the Rams who were outhit 14-5.

David Hebert led the Buffs with three hits and four RBI, while Matt Redfearn had three hits and two RBI. Patrick Ramirez and Parker Wood each added two hits each for WT which advances to play Texas A&M-Kingsville.

Angelo State and Tarleton State split their season-series 2-2 this season, while the Rams are 28-12 in the all-time series and 4-1 against them in LSC Championship play. Mike Weatherly is the probable starting pitcher for the Rams, while Pete Perez will start for the Texans.