Baylor Baseball Walks Off with 5-4 Win vs. UTSA

Bears victorious on Aaron Dodson’s walk-off single

THE RUNDOWN

WACO, Texas – Baylor baseball walked off with a 5-4 win over UTSA on Tuesday evening at Baylor Ballpark. The Bears (11-13) began their six-game home stand with a dramatic come-from-behind win over the Roadrunners (10-14) thanks to a walk-off single by Aaron Dodson.

Trailing 2-0 after two innings, Baylor started the comeback in the third with a leadoff double by Steven McLean. He moved to third on a ground out by Richard Cunningham and scored on a ground out by Darryn Sheppard.

After UTSA scored another run in the sixth, Sheppard and the Bears answered in the seventh. This time it was Justin Arrington with a one-out double, and he scored on a double by Sheppard to make it a 3-2 UTSA lead.

The Roadrunners countered again in the eighth with a run on three walks and an error, but Baylor was up to the task once more in the bottom half. Matt Menard singled with one out and was followed by a pinch-hit single from West Tunnell. Josh Bissonette then singled up the middle to make it a one-run game. Pinch-hitter T.J. Raguse backed Bissonette up with another RBI single to tie the game 4-4 and give the Bears momentum.

In the ninth, Cunningham led off with a walk, and after a pitching change, Sheppard singled on a bunt. An out later, Aaron Dodson roped an RBI single down the right field line for the walk-off winner.

BU reliever Troy Montemayor (1-0) earned the win, allowing two hits and a walk in the ninth inning but no runs. UTSA reliever Patrick Herbelin (1-2) took the loss, giving up three runs on four hits and one walk in one-plus innings.

NOTES

*Baylor has won three of its last four games.

*Baylor is 393-175 all-time at Baylor Ballpark and 8-9 under Steve Rodriguez.

*Baylor leads the all-time series vs. UTSA 33-7 and 25-3 in Waco – the Bears are 1-0 under Rodriguez.

*Kameron Esthay’s career-high 12-game on-base streak ended.

*Aaron Dodson has a career-high 10-game on-base streak and career-high-tying four-game hitting streak as he posted his fifth multi-hit game of the season – he had Baylor’s first walk-off hit since Adam Toth did so on Feb. 21, 2015, against Kent State.

*Steven McLean has a career-high 10-game on-base streak and career-high-tying four-game hitting streak.

*Josh Bissonette has a career-high nine-game on-base streak and career-high-tying four-game hitting streak.

*Richard Cunningham has an eight-game on-base streak.

*Darryn Sheppard has a career-high seven-game hitting streak as he posted his team-high seventh multi-hit game, second four-hit game and team-high sixth multi-RBI game of the season.

*T.J. Raguse has a career-high seven-game hitting streak.

*Levi Gilcrease has a career-high six-game on-base streak.

*Matt Menard posted his third multi-hit game of the season.

*Drew Robertson had career highs of 2.2 innings pitched and two strikeouts.

*Troy Montemayor earned his first career win.

STAT OF THE GAME

0 – The amount of times Baylor held a lead until after the last pitch of the game.

QUOTE OF THE GAME

“Overall, it wasn't the greatest performance, but like I told our guys, we I’ll never apologize for wins. There are games where we should've won and just didn't, and maybe this is one where we shouldn't have won, but we found a way to. Sometimes that's what really good teams do – they find a way to win. We didn't have the best performance on the mound, we ended up walking 10 guys, making four errors, we definitely didn't help ourselves, but sometimes that goes to show a team's intestinal fortitude, or the ability to battle through adversity and find a way to win. So I'm very proud of how they performed in finding a way to win, but we definitely have to get better in some areas.” – Baylor Head Coach Steve Rodriguez

WHAT’S NEXT

Baylor returns to Big 12 play to host Kansas for a weekend series. All three games will air on FOX Sports Plus and are scheduled for 6:35 p.m. CT Friday, 3:05 p.m. Saturday and 1:05 p.m. Sunday.