SAN ANGELO, Texas – A pair of fourth inning home runs helped the Angelo State baseball team shutout Eastern New Mexico, 7-0, on Foster Field at 1st Community Credit Union Stadium Friday night.
Moving to 21-14 overall and 14-7 in the Lone Star Conference, the Rams have moved into a three way tie for first place in the conference with Friday's win. Starting pitcher, Matt Shannon (4-4), tossed a solid seven shutout innings to earn his fourth win of the season. The ASU offensive attack out hit ENMU 13-3 for the game as it capped the night off with a .371 team batting average. The Greyhounds slid to 10-25, 3-18 LSC with the loss and starting pitcher James Thomas was credited with the loss.
"We played solid," commented ASU head baseball coach Kevin Brooks. "Matt [Shannon] went out and did a great job attacking guys and threw well. Offensively, we were able to get some balls up in the air and out of here. Defensively, we made some big plays at times. I thought we did a little bit of everything and I thought we did them all well."
After being retired in order in the first inning, the Rams rebounded in the second when Tyler Coolbaugh lined a double into right field to plate Jay Gonzales for the first run of the game. Nathan Ruane followed up, adding a RBI single that plated Coolbaugh to give ASU a 2-0 lead.
It would not be until two innings later, in the fourth, when Steven Pinales bombed a ball deep over the left field fence for a solo homer to take the lead to 3-0. Later in the Inning Matt Waller jacked a two run homer of his own, giving the Rams a 5 run lead. Finally in the eighth inning Angelo State saw a pair of RBI doubles as Waller struck again followed by Ruane adding one to his numbers for the night.
Shannon struck out seven for his eighth game of the year with at least seven strikeouts. He gave up zero runs on only three hits for the night in seven innings of work. Both Joe Hauser and Jhonatan Del Rosario entered the game in relieve for an inning each. Both relievers gave up no runs, no hits and retired a batter on strikes.
Waller led the Rams at the plate going 3-for-3 with three RBIs, a two run homer, and a double. On the base paths he recorded one of two ASU stolen bases for the night and crossed the plate a team second two times. Also recording multiple hits for the game was Ruane (2-for-4) and Gonzales (2-for-3). Ruane tallied a team second two RBIs while Gonzales pocketed the team's second stolen base. Pinales, who was 1-for-2, cranked the team's second home run giving him a share of the teams home run lead with a total of five on the season.
The Rams return to action on Saturday, April 9 at 1 p.m. to complete its ENMU series with a doubleheader.
