LAWTON – Cameron could not recover from a seven run fourth inning by Eastern New Mexico to fall 10-6 on Sunday afternoon. The Aggies won the first three games of the series and missed out on sweeping their first Lone Star Conference home series since the 2012 season.
Despite missing out on the sweep, Cameron surpassed their 2015 season win total and have hit 20 wins for the first time in four years. The Aggies are 20-11 overall and now 9-11 in LSC play, Eastern New Mexico snapped a seven game skid and are 10-24 overall; in league action they are 3-17.
The Greyhounds struck first after two scoreless innings with a leadoff homer and in the fourth they rattled off four straight hits off of CU starter
Codey Upton to score five runs and took a 6-0 lead with one out.
Tyler Abrego came out of the bullpen with runners on second and third where ENMU cleared the runners off a single to take an eight run lead; the inning ended with the Greyhound runner getting caught in a pickoff.
Cameron manufactured a run in the bottom half of the fourth with
Cody Bower opening the frame with a four pitch walk. Bower advanced off of a passed ball and back-to-back sac flies allowed him to score CU's first run.
Jorden Fields scored the Aggies second run of the inning with a homer to left field to cut down the ENMU lead to 8-2.
In the fifth, Cameron put two on with one out before
Tyler Cook reached on an error by the ENMU shortstop to score
Nate Hale in from second as an unearned run. Bower followed up with a sac bunt RBI to score
Tyler McKinzie in from third to bring the Greyhound lead down to four. Cameron continued to chop off of the ENMU lead and grabbed a two out RBI single in the seventh from Bower to put the Aggies back three.
However, the Greyhounds loaded the bases with one out in the eighth and a failed pickoff attempt to second by the Aggies resulted in a run. Later in the inning a misplay in the CU outfield allowed ENMU's lead to extend 10-5.
Cameron put two on in the eighth but with two outs, the inning ended on a fly out. In the final inning, there was a one out triple to centerfield by
Russ Colgan; Bower followed up and grounded out to short for his third RBI of the game.
Upton (3-1) was charged with the loss going 3 2/3 innings with all seven runs being earned, Abrego recorded the final out in the fourth.
Logan Fanning came out of the bullpen pitching 3 1/3 clean innings,
Deven Youngstedt and
John Millan were both used as well.
The Aggies had nine hits with
Nate Hale having two hits and two runs in the leadoff spot.
Cameron will play a non-conference nine inning game on Tuesday at 6 p.m. against Lubbock Christian.
