Bobcats fall to Golden Eagles in first series loss

SAN MARCOS, Texas – Texas State Baseball lost its first regular-season weekend series since April 9, 2022, against Georgia Southern, losing the last two games of the weekend to the Oral Roberts Golden Eagles after taking game one from ORU, 3-2, Friday night.

Friday, the Bobcats were outplayed in all aspects of the game besides runs. Head Coach Steven Trout told me, honestly, the Golden Eagles should have won. The Bobcats only compiled three hits against the Golden Eagles’ nine, but the Bobcats managed to pull out a win.

“As I told the guys,” Coach Trout said. “They deserved to win the game. They out-hit us, made [fewer] errors, and they only had one free-90 on the whole night – that’s just how baseball goes (sometimes).”

The rest of the weekend, the hitting and defensive struggles continued for the Bobcats. Saturday, the Bobcats started off hot with a home run from senior left-fielder Jose Gonzalez to begin the game. But then committed four errors and only one more hit, a two-RBI home run from freshman second baseman Ryder Hernandez, in the evening that ultimately led to their first loss of the season.

The Sunday matchup, the series finale, saw the Bobcats take an early 1-0 lead – just like Saturday afternoon. But the Golden Eagles had a response and dropped three runs within the second and third innings.

The Bobcats would recover a run in the fourth. But the Bobcat run would deem obsolete as the wheels fell off in the top of the seventh with Oral Roberts putting up a five-spot, ultimately solidifying the series win on the road in San Marcos.

Coach Trout didn’t see the series loss as anything out of the ordinary, seeing Oral Roberts as a quality opponent and just another brick in the path to an NCAA Regional goal. He wants to challenge his team early before going through the gauntlet that the Sun Belt Conference is for baseball.

“I thought it was a very competitive weekend,” Coach Trout said. “Obviously that’s a really good bunch over there (Oral Roberts), that’s a regional team. You want to get tested early, you want to see where your program is, and where your team is.”

Ultimately, the reality is that the record-breaking team from last year isn’t the team the Bobcats have on the field this season – but that doesn’t mean there’s no potential for them to get to that point.

“It’s a new team for us,” Coach Trout said. “New personnel, new roles. There are a lot of things, coaching-wise, that we need to figure out: when to put guys in, when to take guys out, when to play guys, and when to pinch-hit guys. There’s a lot that goes into it. It’s game six, we’re still 4-2, we’re completely fine – we’ve just got to continue to learn (about our squad) and get better.”

Although some Bobcats fans may see this series loss as the end of the season, Coach Trout and his squad know that’s not the case – it’s a long season and you can’t win them all.

“There’s nothing wrong with our effort,” Coach Trout said. “We’ve got to get back to playing better baseball. It’s week two. And everybody feels like it’s week 14 and the season’s over and it’s like, ‘c’mon guys, we got a lot of games to play.’ We’re going to get better, we’re going to get right … you’re going to deal with adversity and so, just to keep getting better every week is our goal.”

The Bobcats have five games coming up within the week, starting with the Cardinals of the University of the Incarnate Word, Tuesday, in San Antonio before coming back home to face Sam Houston, Wednesday, and then hitting the road to Phoenix to play Grand Canyon in a three-game series over the weekend.

“It’s a good week,” Coach Trout said. “It’s five games against quality opponents. I’ve never won at Incarnate Word, so we’ll start there Tuesday. And then a great Sam (Houston) team … they’re hot right now, and then head to a really good Grand Canyon team. So, I’m excited because if we want to be a regional-type team we’ve got to beat some of the teams this week.”

The first road game of the season for the Bobcats is slated for 6:30 p.m. in San Antonio, against the University of the Incarnate Word.

The game between the Cardinals and the Bobcats will be broadcast live on KTSW 89.9 and reporter Kyle Owen will be there as well to provide live updates and news throughout the game.

Be sure to follow @KTSWSports on Twitter and Instagram for all things Texas State and San Marcos Athletics.

Featured Image by Kyle Owen.