John Melvin University hit the road for a midweek series with University of Houston-Victoria, the number 15 ranked NAIA team in the county and a team that has three Division 1 wins on the season already. The Millers dropped the first two games in heart-breaking fasion, giving up a run in the bottom of the 7th in game 1 to lose 3-2 then losing 8-6 in game 2, before putting things together and picking up the game 3 victory to close the series.
Game 3 was a back-and-forth affare throughout the game. JMU took a 2-0 lead in the second before UHV responded with a run. UHV took a 4-2 lead in the third before the Miller immedatly got a run back to cut the lead to 1. The game continued in that manor before the Millers finally scored a run in the 8th inning to take the lead for good and scored another 3 runs in the 9th just for good measure.
The offense came out firing on all cylenders in the game with 5 Millers picking up multi-hit games, including Noah Watkins and Trevor Durr with three hits each and Freshman Lane Kratzer tying the single-game hits record with 4 hits. The Miller offense banged out 8 extra-base hits in the contest with Trevor Durr, Noah Watkins, and Lane Kratzer each picking two each. Senior Noah Watkins and Freshman Lane Kratzer each with a double and a home run in the game.
Senior pitcher Troy Morel was the hero on the mound for the Millers. With Junior Cabet Blanchard making his first start on the season on the mound and throwing 2.2 competitive innings followed by Sophomore Trey Lagrange and Freshman Josh Jones in reliefe, Morel entered the game in the 4th inning with 1 out and two runners on base. Morel got a double-play ball on the first batter he faced in the 4th and carried the Millers the rest of the way, firing 5.2 innings of dominent baseball to pick up his 3rd victory of the year.
The victory was the Millers first ranked victory over an NAIA school in program history. John Melvin continues conference play with a four-game series against Lighthouse Christian College on Friday and Saturday.
