Box Score

Box Score (PDF)

San Marcos, Texas – The Texas State baseball team wrapped up its season-opening home tournament in style on Sunday evening as the Bobcats defeated Air Force, 9-4, in front of 1,632 fans at Bobcat Ballpark. The San Marcos faithful were treated to three mammoth home runs off the bats of the home team as the Bobcats ended the tournament on a high note.

Junior Jeff McVaney had his best game of the young season as he went 2-for-3 with a home run and two runs scored. Kyle Kubitza and Casey Kalenkosky also went deep for the Bobcats who tripled their home run total for the season.

Making his first collegiate start, sophomore Colton Turner went five innings with five strikeouts and no walks to earn his first career win. Turner surrendered just six hits and two runs on the evening as he helped the Bobcats improve to 2-1 on the season.

Air Force starting pitcher Ben Bertelson suffered the loss after getting tagged for seven runs over three innings. The Falcons left San Marcos with a 2-2 record after earning a 16-10 victory earlier on Sunday against Washington.

Turner breezed through the first two innings, sitting down the Falcons in order both frames while racking up four strikeouts in the process. And the Bobcat offense gave Turner plenty of support early on as they scored all nine of their runs through four innings to grab a 9-0 lead.

Texas State managed to quietly piled up four runs in the second inning to take control of the game. After Andrew Stumph reached on an error and McVaney walked, Christian Gallegos hit an infield single that scored Stumph for the first run of the game. Two batters later, Bret Atwood went to the opposite field with a double down the left-field line that scored McVaney and Gallegos to make it 3-0 in favor of Texas State. Tyler Sibley completed the scoring in the inning with an RBI grounded that plated Joey Fuda for a four run Bobcat lead.

After another scoreless inning by Turner, Kalenkosky began the Texas State half of the third inning with a monster blast over the left-field fence that cleared not only the wall but also the 30-foot high netting above the wall. Not to be outdone, McVaney also showed his power two batters later as he blasted a solo homer to left center, giving the Bobcats a 6-0 lead. Texas State added another run on a single from Fuda that put the team in front 7-0. Fuda had his first multi-hit game of his Bobcat career as he finished 2-for-4 with a run scored from the leadoff spot.

The offense stayed hot in the bottom of the fourth inning as Kubitza followed a walk by Sibley with a long home run to right field for his first of the season. Kubitza tied for the team lead in home runs a season ago with 11.

The Falcons finally broke through on Turner in the fifth inning as they scored a pair of runs to close the gap to 9-2, but head coach Ty Harrington turned to senior Fielding Pittman to subdue the Air Force offense as he threw two innings of hitless ball to keep the Bobcats in front by seven.

Garrett Shepperd, Tyler King and Joseph Dvorsky combined to pitch the eighth and ninth innings for the Bobcats as Air Force put two more runs on the board late before falling by a final of 9-4.