Though Texas State fell to UTSA 19-4 in their final midweek game of the season, the game will be most remembered for the on-field confrontation between the opposing coaching staff at home plate.
Following the final out, Head Coach Steven Trout and his staff met with UTSA Head Coach Pat Hallmark at home plate where Trout confronted Hallmark about an incident where Roadrunner pitcher James Hubbard had thrown three consecutive pitchers over the head of Bobcat freshman Blake Beheler following his home run which resulted in a physical altercation between the staffs.
“I just had a question for him if they were throwing out our guy there,” Trout said “I thought that was pretty unprofessional, in my opinion. I'm gonna stand up for my guy, and they pretty much admitted that they did, and I just said, ‘Okay, well, that's the answer I wanted,’. Obviously, we weren't happy with that answer but we know where they stand on things.
“We weren't coming with ill will. It was just more trying to get an answer to the question because a lot of things can be speculated and now we know the answer.”
Hallmark denied that his pitcher was intentionally throwing at Beheler.
“We didn’t throw at him but [Trout] asked about the situation with Hubbard,” Hallmark said. “I said ‘I don’t know what happened’ and he said ‘It looked pretty odd’. I said [again] ‘I don’t know what happened but it looked like he batted flipped.’ Then his assistant coach put his hands on me so I put my hands on him.”
The incident marks the second time in the last two weeks the Bobcats have been involved in an off-field confrontation as an heated argument between sophomore Dawson Park and teammates broke out after the game which led the Park no longer being apart of the roster.
UTSA capitalized on two Bobcat fielding errors to score two runs before a sacrifice fly made it a 3-0 deficit for Texas State.
Following an RBI single, the Roadrunners connected with a two-run RBI double with the batter advancing to third on the Bobcat throwing error.
UTSA then punctuated the inning with a two-run home run as Texas State trailed 8-0.
The Bobcats got on the board in the top of the second when sophomore Brady Boles hit an RBI single to score senior Chase Mora at second.
The Roadrunners added on three more runs in the bottom of the second as the Texas State deficit grew to 11-1.
UTSA continued to punish the Bobcat defense in the bottom of the third, adding five runs to make it a 16-1 game.
Texas State cut into the deficit in the top of the fourth as freshman Blake Beheler connected with a two-run home run.
But the Roadrunners answered back to three runs as the Bobcats trailed 19-3.
Texas State will finish the regular season at home against Marshall in a three-game conference series.
Game Notes
- The loss drops Texas State’s RPI to 45 while UTSA rises to 44. The Bobcats will likely need a sweep of Marshall then a deep run in the Sun Belt Conference tournament to improve their RPI high enough to gain an at-large bid.
- The game marked the highest attended game at Roadrunner Ballpark.
- Texas State will need to win their series against Marshall to clinch a spot in the conference tournament.
