Purple Bears Over Maroon

For a while Thursday, runs were coming in pairs for UCA. They started the game with two in the bottom of the first and went on to win 7-2 over Missouri State at UCA Field.



The game only lasted 2 hours and 30 minutes due to a pretty efficient game by UCA starter Matt Whitaker. Whitaker went seven innings, giving up just two runs on five hits. Head Coach Doug Clark did say he thought he had trouble commanding his fastball and that led to five walks and a hit batter.



“He had pretty good stuff,” Clark said. “He’s striking people out with his change up, and that’s big. In the past he’s had to use his curve for that.”



Whitaker was replaced to start the eighth by Matt Humphrey. Humphrey has a weird looking over-the-top delivery but is able to make it work. He gave up just one hit in relief and faced the minimum six batters thanks to a double play to end the eighth.



Offensively, UCA struck with the first six batters in the lineup. They accounted for 10 of UCA’s 11 hits and 6-of-7 RBIs.



“It’s about getting baserunners,” Clark said.



And when UCA did just that, they were successful enough in scoring those runners. Three of those runs came on sacrifice flies. Having said that, the purple Bears did strand 10 runners.



On the other side of things, MSU stranded just runners. And you can attribute some of that to two double plays.



“Yeah, we got out of a couple of jams right there,” Clark said.



Another part of that was outstanding play behind the plate from senior catcher Chris Davis. Davis was 3-for-3 throwing out MSU’s runners on steal attempts.



Sophomore Graham Martin (2B) led the Bears at the plate, going 3-for-5, but it was the three through six batters behind him that can take credit for the RBIs. Davis, Jonathan Yerby (3B), Chris Houk (RF), and Scott Cline (CF) were a combined 7-for-15 with three doubles, three sac flies and six RBIs.



Clark said that Daniel Price will get the start on Friday and Brandon Dun on Saturday. After only using two pitchers today, the bullpen should be fresh. Clark hopes to get around five innings from Price, who only got through 3-1/3 in his first start of the season.



<Photo Gallery>