After winning in walk-off fashion Friday afternoon, the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff baseball team did something Saturday that no other SWAC team has done all season.
UAPB handed Bethune-Cookman its first SWAC series defeat by beating the Wildcats 8-5 at the Torii Hunter Baseball Complex.
Bethune-Cookman (25-19, 16-4 SWAC) entered the weekend atop the SWAC standings. The Wildcats had won all six of their conference series to this point with four sweeps. They had swept their past three series, which included sweeping rival Florida A&M, which had been tied for first with Bethune entering that series.
UAPB (13-28, 11-6) extended its conference winning streak to eight games Saturday in a game it never trailed.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
The Golden Lions took a 4-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning, which included a 2-RBI double by first baseman Ben VanMaanen. The Wildcats cut the lead in half with a 2-run top of the second inning, but UAPB got those 2 runs back in the third on Bethune’s second error of the game.
UAPB went on to lead by as much as 8-3. Bethune scored a run each in the eighth and ninth, but Golden Lions relief pitcher Emerson Lott earned his second save of the season by retiring four of Bethune’s final five hitters with one strikeout.
Major Spence pitched the first three innings before Brendan Hamlin (3-5) took over, holding the Wildcats to 1 run on three hits, four walks and five strikeouts in 4.2 innings.
Bethune started Brandon Vazquez (0-4) in place of typical Saturday starter Joel Core but pulled him with two outs in the first inning after he allowed 4 runs, 1 of them earned, on three hits and a walk. In total, just 3 of UAPB’s runs were earned.
The Wildcats remain in first place, but their lead has dwindled. UAPB remains in sixth place but is closing the gap on the top five.
The series finale is scheduled for 1 p.m. Sunday.