Bobcats season comes to end at the Sun Belt Tournament

The Texas State baseball team saw their season come to an end as the Bobcats fell to the Louisiana Ragin Cajuns in an elimination game 12-6.

The season concluded for Head Coach Steven Trout as the Bobcats finished the year with a 3623 overall record.

“For us it was another good season,” Trout said. “36 wins are hard to stack up. We felt that we are a little better than that, but that’s the game of baseball. I’m really proud of my group for how hard they both worked and got after it.”

Even though starting pitcher Zeke Wood took the loss, Trout was proud of the senior as he has been dealing with injuries recently.

“I thought Zeke Wood threw the ball well tonight,” Trout said. “He has been battling an arm injury for about a month now and he continued to gut it out. Tonight, we just didn’t make enough plays to make it happen. But I loved our battle and competition so I thought our group left it all out there.”

Despite allowing 14 hits in the game, the Bobcat pitching staff came in and struck out 17 batters with pitcher Jack Stroud leading the charge, throwing out seven batters while allowing just four hits, two walks and four runs.

“You don’t see that a whole lot,” Trout said. “But our guys came in and got after it. Stroud left everything out there. We knew his pitch count was high but he has been our workhorse all year long with Dixon out tonight. They did a really good job and made some big pitches in big moments. Obviously they [Louisiana] had some really good swings and good moments but that is a lot of punchouts.”

The game was a heated back and forth affair, as neither team allowed the other to gain the momentum for the majority of the contest.

After trailing 7-2, the Bobcats battled back in the fifth inning as August Ramirez hit a double down the right field line as the deficit was cut to 7-3.

Ryder Hernandez tacked on another run with a fielder’s choice as the Bobcats made it a 7-4 game.

As Louisiana added another run to push the lead out to four runs in the top of the sixth inning, Texas State answered back with another fielder’s choice by Chase Mora to make it a 8-5 game.

Another Ragin Cajun run was tacked on in the top of the seventh, but the Bobcats answered again with a RBI single by Ben McClain as the score was at 9-6.

Louisiana finally put away Texas State for good as a bases clearing RBI double put the Bobcats behind the eight ball at 12-6.

Though the loss definitely left a sour taste in the mouths of the Bobcats, Trout was proud of his team for continually fighting back.

“We knew it was win or go home,” Trout said. “You just gotta keep competing and getting after it. I thought our guys did a really good job out there even though we left a few on base. We were just a few inches or either a few feet from left to right.”

coltonbmcwilliams @sanmarcosrecord.com Twitter: @ColtonBMc