On Friday night, UTSA Baseball routed UAB by a 19-9 margin to cement back-to-back American Conference regular-season championships in front of an above-capacity crowd at Roadrunner Field. With the 10-run victory, UTSA secured the No. 1 seed in next week’s American Baseball Championship Tournament. The Roadrunners will play their first game in the conference tournament on Friday, May 22.
Pitcher Mike DeBattista secured the win in relief for UTSA. The Roadrunners were hot at the dish, as Diego Diaz and Jacob Silva each posted multiple home runs, with Diaz driving in a game-high and season-high six RBIs. Silva logged four RBIs and Caden Miller got in on the action with three of his own.
Things weren’t looking so rosy for the Roadrunners when UAB took a 9-7 lead in the top of the fourth inning. But a one-out walk to catcher Andrew Stucky got things going in the right direction and set up Silva’s third at-bat of the night with one aboard. He belted one to dead center field, tying the affair at nine runs apiece. Christian Hallmark’s four-pitch walk preluded three straight singles from Aidan Eshelman, Miller and Drew Detlefsen, driving in three more runs as UTSA recaptured the lead at 12-9.
UTSA tacked on five more runs in the fifth inning, as Stucky walked and Diaz doubled to open the frame. An RBI groundout pushed Stucky across the plate before a wild pitch allowed Diaz to cross. The inning continued with a walk for Hallmark prompting an RBI single by Eshelman. From there, Eshelman stole third base and came around on a base hit by Lane Haworth that pushed UTSA’s lead to 17-9.
In the sixth inning, Silva launched a solo home run and Hallmark walloped an RBI triple to give UTSA a 19-9 lead that it wouldn’t relent.
The Roadrunners have won their fourth regular-season championship in program history, doing so in back-to-back fashion for the second time. UTSA Baseball also won the Southland Conference’s regular-season title in 2007 and 2008.
UTSA (36-18; 17-9) and UAB (30-24; 14-12) will clash one last time at 11 a.m. on Saturday, May 16. The Roadrunners will look to secure their eighth conference series victory and solidify the American’s outright regular-season title. All the action from Roadrunner Field will be streamed live on ESPN+ and available to follow via utsa.statbroadcast.com.
