College Station hangs on for 4-3 victory over Rudder

College Station pitcher Myles Simpson is used to starting games, but he proved he's just as good coming out of the bullpen on Wednesday night.

Simpson earned the save for the Cougars as College Station held on for a 4-3 victory over Rudder in District 17-5A action at Ranger Field.

"I mean it was a tough win," College Station head coach Chris Litton said. "You come to this field with that team, they've had a lot of success right here at home. And we just grinded it out and found a way to get a W tonight."

With College Station up 4-2 heading into the bottom of the seventh, Rudder's rally got off to a strong start with pinch hitter Juan Marquez leading off with a double.

A strikeout followed but an RBI single from No. 9 hitter Anthony Menchaca chased College Station's Jordyn Morales who got the win in 1 2/3 innings of relief.

The Cougars then turned the ball over to Simpson. The sophomore said the biggest difference between starting and coming out of the bullpen is you have a shorter warm-up time, so you got to get going faster.

That was no problem for Simpson as the right-hander needed just six pitches to get the job done.

"Man, I felt great," Simpson said. "Fastball, that's really all I threw, just overpowered them with the speed. That's all I needed."

Entering the game in a big spot and delivering like that was not only rewarding for Simpson because he helped the team, but it also gave him some bragging rights.

"A bunch of those guys are my buddies so getting to do it against them, that's fun," Simpson said, adding that he knows all the sophomores on Rudder's team having played with them growing up.

The first batter he faced was Aiden Gray, who is one of those friends. Gray in the game had two hits and scored a run to lead the Rangers.

Simpson got the better of his buddy though with a strikeout. It also evened things up between the two as Simpson faced him once last year and walked him.

"I loved [getting the strikeout]," Simpson said.

The job wasn't finished just yet with one more out needed. College Station catcher Landon Adkison did the honors during the next at-bat by throwing out a runner attempting to steal second base to end the game.

It was a fitting ending since there was a razor-thin margin between the teams the whole game.

College Station (10-15-1, 5-4) scored runs off bases-loaded walks in both the second and fourth innings. The run in the fourth tied the game after Rudder took the lead with two runs in the third inning on a fielding error and a bases-loaded walk.

It remained 2-2 until the sixth inning.

College Station's Blaise Sanger got the inning started with a single, moved to second on a one-out wild pitch before back-to-back walks loaded the bases. Overall, Rudder's trio of pitchers walked 10 and hit one batter.

"It was just a really bad night to start walking guys," Rudder head coach Bailey Deramus said. "We've probably had three weeks in a row where we've had less than walks the other team and then we gave them three free runs. …Overall I thought we did well, we executed a plan, we just didn't make the pitches that we needed to make."

This time the Cougars didn't need a bases-loaded walk to score as Sanger came home on a passed ball.

The senior wouldn't say it was the fastest he's gotten home from third, but he was hustling.

"Body's not feeling great," Sanger joked. "But when I see that ball got back there, yeah I was moving I'm not going to lie."

Sanger added to the lead in the seventh inning as he came around to score from second on a fielding error.

Both teams came into Wednesday's game tied at 4-4 in the district standings, but College Station with the victory moved into sole possession of third place. The Cougars are behind district champ Brenham (10-0) and Montgomery Lake Creek (6-3).

Rudder (9-14, 4-5) is tied with Montgomery for fourth with three district games remaining for both teams. After this week, Rudder has two games against Brenham, while Montgomery has Huntsville which hasn't won a district game.

"I've been telling my guys all week this is the week," Deramus said. "You get swept, you're out, you sweep and you're in. And if that's off the table, you got to split to keep it alive and you got to hope you take one somewhere else against Brenham. And you got to hope some of the other games fall our way."

Rudder wraps up the series with College Station at 7 p.m. on Friday at Cougar Field.

"I think we're in a good spot, we're comfortable," Deramus said going into Friday. "I've always just told myself if we can give these guys a chance then they're going to make it happen. And they want it really bad right now man. Those guys are upset and there's not too many times that we've lost games and we're actually upset, right? So it's a good place to be."

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