After playing on the road for a month, the Cougars hosted the Apaches of Tyler Junior College on Thursday evening. Two weeks prior to the matchup on May 3rd, Coastal Bend traveled to Tyler to begin the seven game series to see who would claim the Region XIV Division III title and the top seed in the NJCAA District C Championships. The Cougars fought hard in those first three games but came up short and faced an uphill battle at home. 

 

 

Michael Dinsdale would get the ball rolling for Coastal Bend with the start. Dinsdale would make the Apaches go three up, three down in each of the first two innings. After walking a batter in the third inning, Dinsdale would get back in his groove & end the top half of the inning with a strikeout.  Tyler Dick would be the first Cougar to reach base safely with an infield single. After a fly-out to left field, Cody Lee came up to the dish & wasted no time in th batters box as he crushed the first pitch he saw over the left field wall to put the Cougars up 2-0. 

 

After allowing two hits to lead things off for TJC, Dinsdale and company were able to pull off a double play. A walk to the next batter would put runners on the corners for the Apaches, but Jordan Gochenour would make a clutch play as he slid into a slow dribbler between second and first, popping up and making the throw to end the inning.  Tyler Dick would draw a walk to reach first, but would be left stranded on second base at the bottom of the fourth inning.  Dinsdale and the Cougars would get into a bit of a jam with two outs & the bases loaded. Joel Rodriguez would track down the fly ball hit to shallow centerfield & throw a laser to home plate for the last out of the top of the fifth inning.  

Gochenour would come to the plate after two Cougar outs & hit a solo homer over the left field to put Coastal Bend up 3-0. Dinsdale would give way to Colton Getshmann after five and one third innings of work, as CBC faced Apache runners on first & second base with one out. Getschmann would end up walking the first batter he faced to load the bases. Following a full count on the next batter, Getschmann got the third strike to record the second out of the inning. After facing another full count, Getschmann again would get the third strike to end the sixth inning leaving all 3 Apaches on base.  

 

Cody Lee would hit a double to start the Cougars off in the bottom of the 7th. Mitchell Sexton bunted to the pitcher and would get hit by the throw at first as it ricocheted to the foul territory. Lee would score and Sexton advanced to second base off the error. During the next at bat, a balk would move Sexton to third base as he would be 90 feet closer to home then score on a wild pitch as the Cougars would lead 5-1 with no outs in the bottom of the seventh inning. Following a strikeout and a pop out, Gochenour would hit an infield single. After a wild pitch, Gochenour would advance to second base. Ruben Sepulveda hit a high pop up in the infield and thanks to some Appachee miscommunication would find himself safe at first, while Gochenour scored to extend the Cougar lead to 6-1. 

 

Getschmann and company would find themselves in some trouble, but would get out of the top of the eight inning unharmed.  Getschmann would then retire two Apaches before allowing a hit would bring to an end to the Goliad native's strong, resilient outing. Jacob Williamson would enter the game to relieve Getschmann. After allowing a hit to load the bases, Williamson would strikeout the next batter to end the game.   The Cougars would win the game 6-1. Dinsdale earned his fifth victory on the year for Coastal Bend. 

 

 

Despite the doubleheader being bumped up two hours due to rain in the forecast, it was a typical hot, sunny day at the time of the first pitch of the game.  Ruben Sepulveda would get the ball for the first game of the double dip. For the first inning, Sepulveda would give up a hit to the first batter he faced, but settled with a fly out, a strikeout and a ground out to end the inning, leaving the lead off man for the Apaches on base.

 

Joel Rodriguez would lead the Cougars off with a single over the shortstop into shallow left center field. Josh Burnett would move over Rodriguez to second base with a sacrifice bunt. Jordan Gochenour would hit a deep fly ball into right center field for an out, but Rodriguez would tag up and advance to third base. Sepulveda hit a base knock into shallow centerfield to score Rodriguez to break up the 0-0 tie. A strikeout would end the inning for the Cougars. Sepulveda would make quick, efficient work of the Apache batters, retiring them in order for the top of the second inning.  Tyler Junior College would only allow Kyler Bumstead to get a hit as TJC managed to strikeout the Cougar batters for the bottom of the second inning.

 

Sepulveda made quick work of the first two batters he faced in the third inning by getting them to fly out and ground out. The next Apache batter would reach base by hitting a single up the middle. The next batter would hit an infield single to beat out the play at first, advancing the previous runner to third base. A hit to shallow center would score the Apache runner from third to tie up the game at 1-1. A slow comback dribbler would allow Sepulveda to end the inning. 

 

After a quick 1,2,3 inning for CBC in the bottom of the third inning, Sepulveda again would get the first two batters out quickly with two fly balls. Consecutive singles from the Apaches would reach base safely, but eventually be left stranded due to a ground out to end the top half of the inning.  As the game moved to the top of the fifth inning, Sepulveda and the rest of the Cougars had trouble getting the last out. After a Walk to the opposing hitter, the next TJC batter would hit a triple to score the runner at first to take a 2-1 lead. Sepulveda and company would end the inning with an infield ground out. 

 

Rodriguez would hit a single up the middle with two outs for Josh Burnett. Burnett faced a 1-1 count and crushed the next pitch he saw over the left field fence to take a 3-2 lead over TJC. The next batter for CBC would get called out on strikes to end the two out rally in the bottom of the fifth inning.  Sepulveda took care of the first two outs in the top of the sixth inning before giving up a hbp and a walk. Mason Foster would enter the game for the Cougars to relieve Sepulveda. The Apaches would tie up the game at 3-3 after back to back walks from Foster. Jacob Williamson entered the game to replace Foster on the mound. 

 

Tyler loaded the bases & CBC bullpen gave up three consecutive walks for the Apaches to gain a 4-3 lead. Moving on to the bottom of the 7th inning, Kyler Bumstead lead the Cougars off with a hit. Mitchell Sexton would lay down a sacrifice bunt to advance Bumstead to second base. The Cougars would not be able to bring in Bumstead for the potential game tying run, as the next CBC batters would fly out to left field & ground out.  Coastal Bend lost the game 4-3, its chance at the Regional XIV Division III Championship, and the top seed in the upcoming District C Tour and the series 4 games to 1. 

 

 

For the second game of the doubleheader, The Cougars would go with Marco Becerril on the mound. Becerill would pitch five strong, effective innings for CBC only allowing one run in the fourth inning.  The Cougars struck first in the home half of the first inning when Joel Rodriguez would score a run from second base by switching places with Josh Burnett, after he hit a double to down the line.  Adrian Pena increased the CBC lead by scoring off a single from Mitchell Sexton. Sexton's RBI would turnout to be the game winner.