MONTGOMERY – Alabama State University received two outstanding pitching performances and hit a combined five home runs in defeating Mississippi Valley State 27-2 and 3-0 in a Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) baseball double header.
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The Hornets (12-9) remained undefeated in conference action running their record to 5-0. MVSU fell to 4-12 overall and 2-5 in SWAC play.
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Game 1Joseph Camacho remained undefeated (3-0) as he stifled the Delta Devils allowing five hits and two runs, one earned, in leading the Hornets to a 27-2 blowout win. He picked up nine strikeouts in the win.
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ASU got home runs from
Carlos Ocasio,
Diandre Amion and Eduardo Rivera in a hit parade that featured 10 players combining for 21 hits and 27 runs.
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Amion led the attack with three hits and six rbi. He added a triple to go with his long ball while also scoring three times. Ocasio, the SWAC's leader in rbi, had three more today as did
Gustavo Rios and
Eriq White.
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The Hornets batted around the order over two times in the third inning sending 20 players to the plate en route to scoring 17 runs.
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Game 2The second game saw two strong pitching performances but
Tyler Howe's (3-2) three-hit shutout was just a tad better than MVSU's Arrington Smith who allowed only eight hits in the loss. Two of those hits were solo home runs off the bats of
Ray Hernandez, and Amion, who collected his second of the two games.
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Howe had complete control of his pitches finishing the nine-inning affair with 10 strikeouts. He did not walk a batter but did hit two batters. He only faced 31 batters in the contest that only lasted 1:46.
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ASU's scored early in the first off an rbi
Yamil Pagan who drove in Amion. He had led the Hornets first off with a double. The other two runs came on Hernandez's one out homer in the fourth and Amion's second of the day came just one inning later with one out.
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Amion was the only player to have more than one hit in the second game, finishing with two.
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"We had two strong outings from Camacho and Howe," Head Coach
Mervyl Melendez said. "I am not sure I have seen two performances like that back-to-back in some time."
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"I thought we did a nice job at the plate, especially in the first game. Their guy threw well in the second game and we were able to scratch out enough runs to give Howe a big win after his performance on the mound."
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The two teams will play in the series finale Sunday at 1 p.m.
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-Hornets-