Shocker baseball can’t keep up with Texas-Pan American on Friday

Gene Stephenson walked from the dugout after the game wondering aloud when the Shocker men’s basketball team played.

When he was told 6 p.m. by a member of the media he looked up and said, “Well, I hope they play better than we did today.”

Stephenson got his wish—the Shocker men beat Missouri State.

But his baseball team didn’t get its win.

The Texas- Pan American Broncos (3-7) hit three homeruns in the sixth inning to fuel a 7-5 victory to take the first of a three-game weekend series.

Stephenson criticized his team’s at-bats after its victory against Nebraska-Omaha on Wednesday for failing to score any runs after the second inning.

Friday afternoon, he witnessed the same offensive performance—batters chasing bad stuff and failing to adjust to different pitches.

The Shockers (7-5) collectively had eight hits, three of them coming from Dayne Parker.

“We’re just not very good and we don’t make adjustments and we keep doing the same things and we keep making the same outs,” Stephenson said. “I don’t know what it is—hitters can be very stubborn people. Very stubborn.”

As for the Broncos, this offensive outburst certainly came out of nowhere.  For the year, they are hitting .226 with just one home run. But they were a different team today, recording 13 hits.

Mavericks’ pitcher Dylan Badura (1-2) earned the win and kept the Shockers at bay the majority of the time he was on the mound. By the time the Shockers began their rally, they already found themselves in a 6-1 hole in the sixth inning.

Will Klausing started things off, homering into right field.  Then, Alberto Morales did the same thing, homering to left center. Dillion Engelhart capped the offensive explosion by hitting their final home run, this time to left field.

Four different WSU pitchers took the mound—three gave up at least one earned run.

“They hit three (home runs) in one inning, I wouldn’t call that very good pitching,” Stephenson said.

The Shockers had two chances to rally back when a throwing error allowed Daniel Kihle to score to cut the lead to 6-4. And Erik Harbutz scored on a passed ball to get within 6-5. However, the game ended when they drove in another runner in the ninth inning and Johnny Coy grounded into a double-play.

“We have to play better, we just have to we have to pitch better, we have to hit better,” Stephenson said.