It was a beautiful night for baseball in a beautiful ballpark in Arlington as the Frogs took on the UTA Mavericks.
Spencer Arrighetti made his debut as a starter and threw two solid innings for the Frogs, giving up one run and two hits. The run came across for the Mavericks in the second after the leadoff hitter reached. Goodloe lead of the game with a double and then got stranded at second. Immediately I think, oh no this is going to be one of those games. UTA struck first in the bottom of the second for a single run and then the Frogs tied it in the third courtesy or a Watson single.
In the top of the fourth the Frogs took the lead courtesy of a three-run shot into the right field bullpen off the bat on Conner Shepherd, who also hit his first home run last year at Dodger stadium.
Haylen Green came on in the fourth and gave up a leadoff double that came around to score and then worked the rest of the fourth and fifth innings while not giving up any more runs. The Frogs got another insurance run in the 6th after a Shepherd single who later came around to score in a pass ball.
King came in to pitch the bottom of the 6th and threw 2 2/3 innings of one run ballwhile holding the two-run lead. Coughlin came in the 8th to try to close the inning for King, hit a batter, and got pulled. Mihlbauer got the Frogs out of the jam and it was on to the 9th. Perez came in to close the game and did the job as always. The Mavs led off the 9th with a two-strike single, but the runner is erased on a double play on a line out to Shepherd at third. Perez stuck out the last Maverick and that was the ballgame.
The freshman has proven himself to be the new closer. He has been everything Durbin was and the 9th inning hasn’t been a problem for the Frogs if he has been on the mound. The Frogs win the game 5-3 and move to 13-6 headed into conference play. The Texas Longhorns come to Lupton this weekend, after taking two of three games in Austin last weekend from Big 12 Preseason favorite, Texas Tech. The Frogs look to start conference play on a winning note, and possibly look for the return of Jared Janczak to the weekend rotation.
