Middle Tennesee State University Athletics
Sunday, April 3
Murfreesboro, Tenn.
1 p.m.
Middle Tennessee
13-14, 0
5
vs
1
Western Kentucky University
10-17, 0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
R
H
E
Western Kentucky
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
9
3
Middle Tennessee
0
0
4
0
1
0
0
0
0
5
8
1
Team Stats
Pitching:
W: Wigginton, Peyton (3-2)
L: Cooper Hellman (0-4)
Batting:
2B: Ty Crittenberger 1
RBI: Ty Crittenberger 1
Base Running:
RUNS: Brett Blomquist 1
CS: Ty Batusich 1
HBP: Ty Batusich 1 ; Brett Blomquist 1
Batting:
3B: Galloway, Jackson 1
HR: Lopez, Fausto 1
RBI: Lopez, Fausto 1 ; Galloway, Jackson 2 ; Coker, Brett 2
SF: Coker, Brett 1
Base Running:
RUNS: Lopez, Fausto 1 ; Morgan, Wyatt 1 ; Negishi, Tatsunori 1 ; Mabry, JT 1 ; Galloway, Jackson 1
SB: Mabry, JT 2 ; Coker, Brett 1
HBP: Morgan, Wyatt 1 ; Mabry, JT 1
Game Leaders
Hitting
AB
5
R
1
H
2
RBI
1
AB
4
R
1
H
2
RBI
2
AB
3
R
1
H
1
RBI
0
AB
4
R
1
H
1
RBI
0
Players Mentioned
INF
/ BaseballOF
/ Baseball
INF
/ Baseball
1B
/ BaseballOF
/ Baseball
LHP
/ Baseball
Photo by: @MTAthletics
Wigginton, Middle Tennessee claim series over WKU with Sunday win
4/3/2022 4:48:00 PM | Baseball
The senior southpaw threw a complete game on the mound with six strikeouts
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — "There's a well known saying in college baseball," senior Fausto Lopez said after Middle Tennessee dropped Game 2 of their series with Western Kentucky on Saturday. "Champions win on Sunday."
This particularly Sunday, the Blue Raiders played like a champion against the Hilltoppers, winning the rubber match of their three game series 5-1 in front of the fans at Reese Smith Jr. Field to claim their second C-USA series in as many weekends.
"Any time you win a series over your rival at home in front of a great crowd and great weather, that was fun," head coach Jim Toman said. "Their best hitters are left-handers, so we knew we had a pretty good matchup with (Peyton Wigginton). We're still trying to figure out exactly how to tweak that rotation, but when we're on a Sunday to win the series and we have a veteran that throws strikes who may be our best guy, that's a pretty good option to have."
Peyton Wigginton went the distance on the mound for MT (13-14, 5-4 C-USA), the southpaw taking advantage of the five lefties in WKU's (10-17, 2-7 C-USA) lineup to only allow one run while striking out six, throwing nine innings on just 108 pitches. It was just the fifth start of the season for the fifth-year senior, who's filled in with a swing role early on in conference play for the Blue Raiders, coming out of the bullpen to shut down games with occasional starts if he doesn't pitch on Friday or Saturday.
"This is going to be my last time pitching against them, for sure, so it's nice to have the final one be a win," Wigginton said.
Lopez and Jackson Galloway led the way at the plate for MT, each getting two hits, including a massive extra base hit for both Blue Raiders in the bottom of the third.
Western Kentucky drew first blood with a run in the top of the second, but MT struck back leading off the bottom of the third, when Fausto Lopez pinged the 1-0 pitch off the right field foul pole for his team-leading sixth home run of the season, tying the game at 1-1. Middle Tennessee then got two more runners on via a hit by pitch and a walk, setting up a two-out triple from Jackson Galloway that hit off the center field wall to score Wyatt Morgan and JT Mabry.
"I wanted to be able to get a pitch I could execute on," Galloway said. "Looking up in the zone, my first AB, I kind of chased a couple pitches down. So I told myself before I went up there 'See it up, make sure it's up. If it is, just fire on it.' It ended up being the first pitch, and I put a good swing on it."
Galloway then scored on a Brett Coker single up the middle, chasing Hilltopper starter Cooper Hellman from the game after just 2.2 innings of work, with MT in possession of a 4-1 lead once the frame came to an end one batter later.
"Our motto is pass the bat, get the bat to the next guy up," Galloway said. "I remember being up there, and I don't know how I heard it, but I heard someone say 'Make sure you pass the bat.' I was like, 'Well, here it goes.'
"The rule of thumb is if you score a run an inning, it's going to be hard to beat us. But if you score four or five in an inning, it buries teams quick. So you can't complain, it's good to see it finally happening."
The Blue Raiders added one more run in the bottom of the fifth inning, plating Tatsunori Negishi on a Coker sacrifice fly after the first baseman made his way to third after a leadoff single. MT held a 5-1 lead after five complete.
Wigginton cruised the rest of the way, facing the minimum in both the sixth and seventh innings while striking out two batters in the eighth to strand two Hilltopper runners. While he had a shot in the ninth to finish with a "Maddux," a complete game with fewer than 100 pitches, two late WKU hits pushed him past the century mark in pitches, setting up a game-ending punchout to clinch the series.
"I was throwing a lot of cutters," Wigginton said. "I was able to do that whenever I fell behind in the count just to snatch a strike whenever I felt like and was able to get ahead on a lot of 0-0s too. I'm not a huge strikeout guy, so I have to rely on my defense a whole lot. Having my defense make huge plays for me and being active is really really important for us and the team."
The series win keeps MT just two games behind conference leader Southern Miss, keeping pace with a plethora of conference foes who earned series wins or sweeps on Sunday, including UTSA and ODU.
"It's huge," Toman said of the team's series win. "Because some of the guys don't understand that at the end of the year, you get a lot of ties (in the conference standings). And the first tiebreaker is what you do in the series. So we have a tiebreaker over (WKU) and we have a tiebreaker over UAB. So that was big."
Middle Tennessee will face Memphis on Wednesday at the Reese, before heading on the road to Marshall next weekend for its next C-USA series. Wednesday's non-conference game is scheduled for first pitch at 4 p.m.
This particularly Sunday, the Blue Raiders played like a champion against the Hilltoppers, winning the rubber match of their three game series 5-1 in front of the fans at Reese Smith Jr. Field to claim their second C-USA series in as many weekends.
"Any time you win a series over your rival at home in front of a great crowd and great weather, that was fun," head coach Jim Toman said. "Their best hitters are left-handers, so we knew we had a pretty good matchup with (Peyton Wigginton). We're still trying to figure out exactly how to tweak that rotation, but when we're on a Sunday to win the series and we have a veteran that throws strikes who may be our best guy, that's a pretty good option to have."
Peyton Wigginton went the distance on the mound for MT (13-14, 5-4 C-USA), the southpaw taking advantage of the five lefties in WKU's (10-17, 2-7 C-USA) lineup to only allow one run while striking out six, throwing nine innings on just 108 pitches. It was just the fifth start of the season for the fifth-year senior, who's filled in with a swing role early on in conference play for the Blue Raiders, coming out of the bullpen to shut down games with occasional starts if he doesn't pitch on Friday or Saturday.
"This is going to be my last time pitching against them, for sure, so it's nice to have the final one be a win," Wigginton said.
Lopez and Jackson Galloway led the way at the plate for MT, each getting two hits, including a massive extra base hit for both Blue Raiders in the bottom of the third.
Western Kentucky drew first blood with a run in the top of the second, but MT struck back leading off the bottom of the third, when Fausto Lopez pinged the 1-0 pitch off the right field foul pole for his team-leading sixth home run of the season, tying the game at 1-1. Middle Tennessee then got two more runners on via a hit by pitch and a walk, setting up a two-out triple from Jackson Galloway that hit off the center field wall to score Wyatt Morgan and JT Mabry.
"I wanted to be able to get a pitch I could execute on," Galloway said. "Looking up in the zone, my first AB, I kind of chased a couple pitches down. So I told myself before I went up there 'See it up, make sure it's up. If it is, just fire on it.' It ended up being the first pitch, and I put a good swing on it."
Galloway then scored on a Brett Coker single up the middle, chasing Hilltopper starter Cooper Hellman from the game after just 2.2 innings of work, with MT in possession of a 4-1 lead once the frame came to an end one batter later.
"Our motto is pass the bat, get the bat to the next guy up," Galloway said. "I remember being up there, and I don't know how I heard it, but I heard someone say 'Make sure you pass the bat.' I was like, 'Well, here it goes.'
"The rule of thumb is if you score a run an inning, it's going to be hard to beat us. But if you score four or five in an inning, it buries teams quick. So you can't complain, it's good to see it finally happening."
The Blue Raiders added one more run in the bottom of the fifth inning, plating Tatsunori Negishi on a Coker sacrifice fly after the first baseman made his way to third after a leadoff single. MT held a 5-1 lead after five complete.
Wigginton cruised the rest of the way, facing the minimum in both the sixth and seventh innings while striking out two batters in the eighth to strand two Hilltopper runners. While he had a shot in the ninth to finish with a "Maddux," a complete game with fewer than 100 pitches, two late WKU hits pushed him past the century mark in pitches, setting up a game-ending punchout to clinch the series.
"I was throwing a lot of cutters," Wigginton said. "I was able to do that whenever I fell behind in the count just to snatch a strike whenever I felt like and was able to get ahead on a lot of 0-0s too. I'm not a huge strikeout guy, so I have to rely on my defense a whole lot. Having my defense make huge plays for me and being active is really really important for us and the team."
The series win keeps MT just two games behind conference leader Southern Miss, keeping pace with a plethora of conference foes who earned series wins or sweeps on Sunday, including UTSA and ODU.
"It's huge," Toman said of the team's series win. "Because some of the guys don't understand that at the end of the year, you get a lot of ties (in the conference standings). And the first tiebreaker is what you do in the series. So we have a tiebreaker over (WKU) and we have a tiebreaker over UAB. So that was big."
Middle Tennessee will face Memphis on Wednesday at the Reese, before heading on the road to Marshall next weekend for its next C-USA series. Wednesday's non-conference game is scheduled for first pitch at 4 p.m.
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