May 20, 2012
FORT WORTH, Texas - TCU broke open a one-run contest with eight runs over the middle three innings en route to a 10-2 victory over San Diego State Sunday afternoon at Lupton Stadium in Fort Worth. It was the regular-season finale for both teams, who also will meet in the first round of the Mountain West Tournament on Thursday in Las Vegas.
The Aztecs (24-32, 12-12 MW) took the early lead with an unearned run in the top of the first off Horned Frog starter Stefan Crichton. Greg Allen reached on a throwing error by the TCU shortstop and promptly stole second. He advanced to third on a grounder to second by Tim Zier and scored on Chris Wilson's single to left.
SDSU starter TJ Kendzora held the Frogs in check in the bottom of the inning, but was touched up for a pair for runs in the next inning as the home side took a lead that it would not relinquish the remainder of the day. Two innings later Kendzora gave up a single, double and triple to begin the bottom of the fourth as TCU went up 5-1 and he was lifted in favor of Bryan Crabb.
Kendzora's final line would read 3.0 innings pitched during which he surrendered five runs on six hits along with two walks. The sophomore right-hander would take the loss to fall to 0-3 on the season.
San Diego State would get a run back in its half of the fifth as Evan Potter doubled, stole third and scored on an error by the Horned Frog third baseman of the bat of Tim Zier to make it a 5-2 game.
After TCU (35-17, 18-6 MW) responded with three runs in the bottom of the same inning, the Aztecs mounted a threat in the top of the sixth. Thornton reached on an error to lead off the frame and Jake Romanski followed with a double. At that point Crichton was lifted from the game in favor of reliever Travis Evans, who hit Jomel Torres to load the bases with no outs.
Justin Scharf was then brought on in relief and he got a pitcher-to-catcher-first double play plus a strikeout to end the threat. That would help make a winner of Crichton, who improved to 7-2 after tossing five innings and giving up two runs on seven hits.
The Horned Frogs would add two more runs in their half of the sixth off Aztec lefty Mitch Bluman to complete the day's scoring.
SDSU finished with 10 hits in the contest and left 11 men on base. The Aztecs got two hits apiece from Romanski, Potter, Zier and Torre.
San Diego State will now prepare for next week's conference tournament and will meet TCU on Thursday, May 24, at 3:00 p.m. at Earl E. Wilson Stadium in Las Vegas.