CONWAY, Ark. _ The University of Central Arkansas Bears found the offense they had been missing for most of two days in the ninth inning Sunday and rallied for a 7-6 victory over the Nicholls State Colonels at Bear Stadium.
UCA (26-9, 6-6) won the series 2-1, but it took a huge late rally to do it. The Bears only managed six hits off four NSU pitchers, but finally managed to solve one of the best closers in the league in NSU’s Jordan McCoy in the ninth. Holding a 6-4 lead, McCoy hit UCA center fielder Jonathan Davis with a pitch to start the inning. Catcher Michael Marietta followed with a conventional walk and left fielder Ethan Harris singled to right field to load the bases with no outs.
Third baseman Kraig Kelley, in his first at-bat of the day, drew a walk to make it 6-5. Shortstop Justin Treece hit a sinking fly ball to right that NSU’s Mike Barba caught but could not throw out a sliding Marietta at the plate, tying the game at 6-6. Junior Doug Votolato, who entered in the eighth as a pinch runner, came up and stroked a liner up the middle for the game-winning RBI, scoring Harris with the winning run.
The Bears took advantage of nine walks _ six by NSU starter Taylor Byrd _ three hit batters and four errors to improve to 17-2 at home this season.
The other hero for UCA was senior reliever Ethan McKinzie, who came on in the third inning and went 6 1/3 innings, allowing just 4 hits and no earned runs, striking out 4 in his longest outing of the season.
The Colonels (17-20, 2-9) went ahead 1-0 in the top of the first off UCA starter Bryce Biggerstaff, who had his shortest outing of the season, allowing 4 hits and 3 earned runs in just two innings. UCA tied it at 1-1 in the bottom of the inning when Marietta walked and scored on a wild pitch.
NSU then added two runs in the second to UCA’s one, and added three more over the next two frames for a 6-2 lead. Chris Townsend’s sacrfice fly brought in UCA’s second run and Marietta did the same in the fifth inning. The Bears made it 6-4 with a run in the eighth on Townsend’s RBI single to left field to set up the ninth-inning heroics.
Treece was the only UCA player with multiple hits, going 2 for 4, while Townsend added 2 RBI. For Nicholls, center fielder Matt Richard went 3 for 4, while Brandon Jackson and Tyler Duplantis had two hits apiece.
UCA has no mid-week game this week before a Southland Conference series at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi next weekend.
