Kansas State was held to one run as No. 9-ranked Auburn handed the Wildcats their first loss of the season, 5-1. The contest was the first game for the two teams in the Amegy Bank College Baseball Series, held at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas.
K-State was held down due to the dominance of Tigers starting pitcher Jake Marciano, who was making his second start of the season. The sophomore lefty went six innings, allowing just two hits and striking out eight batters. On the season, Marciano has now struck out 20 batters in 11 innings.
“We had our opportunities to put some pressure on them, and we didn’t do it,” K-State head coach Pete Hughes said. “But the story of the game was their starting pitcher, Marciano, was awesome. We couldn’t figure him out.”
On the mound for the Wildcats was right-handed pitcher James Guyette, who was also making his second start of the season. While Guyette didn’t match Marciano’s outing, he held his own against a good Auburn offense.
The junior right-hander went six innings, allowing two runs and six hits. The outing by Guyette kept K-State in the game, but unlike last weekend, the offense wasn’t able to get going.
“We’ll get back to work tomorrow,” Hughes said. “I thought [James Guyette] had a really good outing and definitely pitched well enough for us to give him support and win that game tonight, but we didn’t.”
The Tigers were able to score a run in the first to immediately take the lead, something K-State has done a lot of so far this season. The early deficit to a highly ranked team could have been a mental factor for the Wildcats as they were trying to play catch-up all game, while facing a dominant pitcher.
Auburn continued to extend the lead throughout the game, scoring another run in the fifth and plating two runs in the eighth inning to take a 4-0 lead.
K-State answered with its lone run in the bottom of the eighth inning, when designated hitter Micah Kendrick hit a double into the gap to score Shintaro Inoue, cutting the Tigers’ lead to 4-1. The Wildcats were only able to muster four hits in the entire game, making a rally difficult to get going.
In the top of the ninth, Auburn scored another run to bring the deficit back to four and then held K-State scoreless in the bottom half of the inning to close out the game.
Outfielder AJ Evasco led the team as he was the only Wildcat to have a multi-hit game. Evasco had a stellar freshman season and so far has gotten off to a great sophomore year as well, being a leader of the K-State offense.
