The University of Memphis baseball team picked up another conference series victory over the weekend, coming back from a series-opening loss to win two straight games on the road over the University of Connecticut.
With the pair of victories the Tigers improved to 29-13 on the season and 9-6 in the American Athletic Conference, and have moved into a tie for first place in the conference. And with the recent wins, the team is starting to gain national recognition — on Monday the Tigers found their names slotted at No. 24 in the most recent Baseball America top 25 poll.
Against the UConn Huskies (28-17, 7-8 AAC) the Tigers were able to win the series, despite being throttled in game one. Memphis was first on the scoreboard, striking by way of a Sach Schritenthal solo homer in the game’s opening inning, but it was the only run of the day for the Tigers while the Huskies piled on 10 scores of their own.
Pitching was an issue for Memphis in the opening game, with starter Caleb Wallingford giving up four earned runs and walking three batters in his six innings on the mound, while Drew Crosby had a disastrous two innings in relief, yielding 10 hits and four earned runs.
The Tigers struck quickly again in Saturday’s game two when Schritenthal and Darien Tubbs came home off groundballs to give Memphis an early 2-0 advantage. The U of M held on to the lead and won 4-3 behind improved pitching, with starter Dylan Toscano picking up the win to improve his record to 7-1 on the season.
Sunday’s series-deciding game three was a tightly contested affair throughout, with the two teams ultimately going 15 innings before a winner emerged. The pitcher’s duel between Memphis’ Connor Alexander and UConn’s Jordan Tabakman resulted in no runs for either side after nine innings of play, with all scores coming in extra innings.
Memphis finally broke through in the top of the 10th when Darien Tubbs scored following a UConn fielding error, but the Huskies were able to match the run in the bottom of the inning with a Joe Deroche-Duffin RBI single to right field hit off of Memphis’ Blake Myers.
The sides played four more innings of scoreless baseball before Kane Barrow’s 15th home run of the season pushed the Tigers over the top and towards a 3-1 victory to clinch the series.
Memphis now sits in a tie at the top of the American Athletic Conference, and it’s set to be a tight race to the finish with only three series remaining in conference play before the AAC Tournament. Four teams — Memphis, South Florida, East Carolina and Houston — are tied at 9-6 for first place in the conference, with Tulane only one game behind at 8-7 and UConn two behind at 7-8.
The Tigers face a very favorable conference schedule the rest of the season, with two of the three remaining conference series coming against AAC bottom-feeders Cincinnati and Central Florida, although when the two teams met earlier in the season Memphis dropped two of three games to Cincinnati.
But before the home stretch of conference play begins the Tigers have two mid-week conference games this week before facing Cincinnati in a three-game series this weekend. Memphis faces Arkansas State in Jonesboro Tuesday evening, and return home to take on Mississippi Valley State Wednesday afternoon.
The U of M previously played one game this season against Arkansas State, winning 5-2 on March 17 at FedExPark.
First pitch for the contest between Memphis and Arkansas State is set for 6:30 p.m. in Jonesboro, and the Mississippi Valley State game will start at 1:00 p.m. Wednesday at FedExPark.
The Memphis Tigers baseball team has been celebrating a lot of victories this season. The Tigers, 29-13, are one win away from matching their total in all of 2014 (30). Photo by David Minkin
