FORT SMITH, AR – Everything was working on Saturday, April 22 for the UT Permian Basin baseball team in their doubleheader sweep of Arkansas-Fort Smith at Crowder Field in Fort Smith, Arkansas. The Falcons have now won 19 games and are just one win away from their first 20-win season since 2019.
The offense pummeled the Lions, scoring 19 runs and racking 33 hits, while holding the home team to just six runs on nine hits over both games.
Ethan Flodstrom,
Austin Hall, and
Jack Haggerty all had five hits on the afternoon while Haggerty and
Carson Johnson had a team-high three RBI on the day.
Despite all the scoring, the Falcons were kept quiet offensively early in the opening game and fell behind 2-0 heading into the fourth. Hall began the fourth with a walk and singles by Haggerty and
Cooper Ciesielski loaded the bases with nobody out.
Jay DeSoto drove in a run with a deep fly ball and moved Haggerty to third.
Ethan Babcock-Barrie singled home Haggerty to tie the score at two and keep the inning going. After the Falcons reloaded the bases, Flodstrom drove in a run with a single to centerfield before a wild pitch plated another for the 4-2 lead. Hall tripled and scored on a wild pitch for an insurance run in the fifth of what would eventually be a 5-3 Falcon win.
The Falcons jumped all over the Lion pitching right from the first pitch in the second game. Hamlin singled and scored on a Johnson double to lead 1-0 just three batters into the game.
Brent Rigtrup's single later in the inning brought home Johnson and he eventually scored on a hit off the bat of Haggerty for the 3-0 lead.
They continued to pour it on in the second with a two-run single by Hamlin for the 5-0 lead. The Lions got one back in the third on a solo home run, but the Falcons put any doubt of the outcome to bed with a three-run outburst in the fourth. Johnson drove in Hamlin with a single after Hamlin's one-out double. A pair of walks would load the bases where back-to-back singles by Haggerty and DeSoto pushed the lead to 8-1.
Flodstrom, Johnson, and Hall added to the lead in the top of the sixth as they added four more for a 12-1 lead. Haggerty tripled home Rigtrup in the seventh before scoring on a DeSoto ground ball in what would end at 14-3 in favor of the Falcons.
