UT Arlington baseball buries Baylor early to complete season sweep

Maybe all UT Arlington needed to snap a five-game losing streak was to come home.

The Mavericks made sure to grab an early lead and never let go, scoring six runs in the first three innings to beat Baylor 6-3 Tuesday night at Clay Gould Ballpark.

Having not led for more than a half-inning in 10 days, UTA (11-11, 2-4 Sun Belt) scored early and often enough to sweep the season series over the struggling Bears.

“We didn’t play that bad [this weekend], we just didn’t win. We have plenty of season left, and we needed to win. Winning does a lot of things for us,” coach Darin Thomas said.

Batting second for the first time all year, Noah Vaughan doubled to move Matt McLean to third. RJ Williams grounded him home to give UTA an early first-inning lead.

Starter Reid Petty ran into trouble in the second by walking two Bears, but Thomas had a quick hook on him. He brought in Dylan Schneider, who coaxed a lazy fly ball to shut down the threat.

“The games we’ve lost lately, we’re giving up a big inning early. And you can’t get behind tonight with the way the wind’s blowing in,” Thomas said. “[Petty]’s coming back from injury and we were only going to try and get two [innings] from him.”

Schneider was solid through the middle innings, and the Mavericks didn’t let up after that.

After Jerame Littell moved Darien McLemore and Caleb Koedyker into scoring position, Josh Minjarez belted a two-run triple into the right-field gap to record his first extra-base hit of the season.

Vaughan brought him home two batters later. He collected his fourth straight multi-hit game, finishing 2 for 4 with an RBI.

Littell, who already has two grand slams this season, slapped a bases-loaded single through the left side of the infield to extend the lead to 6-0.

That was all Schneider and the UTA bullpen needed to close the door on the Bears and the five-game skid that saw them fall below .500 for the first time since Feb. 27. Schneider earned the win after carrying UTA into the sixth inning, allowing two runs on three hits.

Jacob Moreland and Daniel James closed the book on Baylor in the final innings.

UTA took advantage of a punchless Bears team that struggled to move runners around. Baylor (8-12, 1-2 Big 12) collected four hits and only managed to go 2 for 17 with runners on base.

Starter Austin Stone, who made his first appearance since March 2015, was run from the game in the second inning. The Mavericks got to his replacement Blake Allen, but once Kody Hessemer started the fourth inning, the Mavericks had only two hits the rest of the way.

The win sealed UTA’s first season sweep of Baylor.

This story was originally published March 22, 2016 at 10:54 PM with the headline "UT Arlington baseball buries Baylor early to complete season sweep."