Photo by Sandra Santos-Cruz
By Matt Weiner (@mattweiner20) — Reporter
You didn’t need to see Charles McAdoo’s swing followed by a stop and stare to know he gave the Spartans a 3-1 lead in the bottom of the eighth.
Instead, you could’ve just looked at Lobos left fielder Lenny Junior Ashby’s body paralyzed in shock as the ball sailed over his head.
McAdoo knew the whereabouts of the baseball a millisecond before Ashby.
“I knew I got all of it,” said McAdoo. “Got going around the bases and couldn’t wait to see my teammates.”
McAdoo’s bomb capped off one of the best pitching performances the Spartans produced during the young season, allowing only one run to score.
Brandon Clark got things going for the Spartans in his second start of the year.
Clark’s slider kept each Lobo off balance leading to five scoreless innings and seven strikeouts.
“Just mixing pitches ended up working out really well for us,” Clark said.
Slowly increasing in size an inch at a time until finally appearing to look like a watermelon before falling off the table at the last second. With one out and two runners on in the fourth inning, he forced back-to-back sky high fly outs on huge swings that were trying to send the pitch over the Golden Gate Bridge.
“There was a curveball and Coach Moir called a high fastball the pitch before and threw a curveball right off of that and it worked out pretty well, I’m pretty sure it was a K looking.”
Cade Van Allen came in to relieve Clark in the sixth inning and was pulled after walking two consecutive batters.
Darren Jansen came in after and gave up a hot shot to Lenny Junior Ashby that ricocheted off of Hunter Dorraugh’s glove at first bringing Ashby to second on a double. It could’ve been a major crisis if James Shimashita didn’t risk a broken clavicle and a potential stint in a neck brace.
If the ball dropped, then it would’ve given the Lobos a two-run lead and put them on the precipice of breaking the game wide open.
The win gave the Spartans their first conference win of the year and they’ve now won more games than they did all of last year.
The rubber match between the Spartans and Lobos will be held tomorrow at 12 p.m. at Excite Ballpark as the Spartans begin their quest of taking over the Mountain West.