Vaqueros dominate season opener

The UTRGV Baseball Team secured its opening game against Houston Christian University at home tonight 10-0, making its record 1-0 overall.

Last season, the Vaqueros ended with an overall record of 33-25 and 17-13 in the Western Athletic Conference. 

The game started out slow with neither of the teams achieving any runs for the first 4 innings.

At the bottom of the 5th inning, sophomore catcher Steven Lancia got the first run of the game, followed by senior outfielder Zerek Saenz, redshirt sophomore infielder Isaac Lopez, graduate outfielder Montclair Cain and junior infielder Jacob Sanchez.

Head coach Derek Matlock said graduate pitcher Jesus Aldaz got the team to a good start since the Huskies did not manage to get anyone on base in the top of the first inning. 

“Putting up a bunch of zeros, letting our offense stay in it,” Matlock said. “If you fall down two nothing, it puts a lot of pressure on our offense and changes the game.”

Aldaz struck out six batters and allowed two singles and a walk.

Asked how he thinks Houston Christian University’s offense performed, Matlock replied they had a talented pitcher.

“It’ll be different all the time,” he said. “Hitting is so hard. It’s dictated by how good their pitcher throws, but I liked this offense from the minute I saw it.” 

During the bottom of the 6th inning, Lopez, Sanchez and graduate outfielder Brandon Pimentel all ran in to make the score 8-0. 

Matlock said he is trying to learn their own bullpen and is preparing for the next games against Houston Christian University.

“You just don’t want to lose trying to learn who your guys are,” he said. “If you can stay away from that and learn who you can trust and who can come in big moments and make pitches and who can go up there and have a big at-bat.”

The game-winning runs were scored by junior infielder Damian Rodriguez and Saenz during the 7th inning, ending the game early. 

Lopez said the game started out slow, but that the team was solid on the pitching and defensive side.

“Later on in the game, offense came around and we started getting hot,” Lopez said.

Houston Christian University junior pitcher Rye Gunter matched Aldaz pitch-for-pitch during the first four innings, during which there were no runs.

Asked how things turned around during the fifth inning, Lopez replied the Vaqueros were a little anxious during the beginning of the game. 

“We just had a team meeting in the dugout,” he said. “After that, Zerek started off hot and I just came back and we got the wheels rolling.”

Lopez said they applied pressure on the base-running side of things when they least expected it.

“It was a pretty big thing to get runners in scoring positions with less than two outs,” he said. “Was pretty big for us.”

Lopez said it was a huge win for them and he is thankful for the community coming out to support the season opener. 

The Vaqueros are set to play two more games against the Huskies at 6:30 p.m. Saturday and noon Sunday at the UTRGV Baseball Stadium.