College Baseball Notebook: HRs in bunches for Bobcats’ Mora
It’s going to be hard for Texas State’s Chase Mora to top the first month of his college career.
He became the first Division I freshman since 2015 to hit four home runs in a game, and he narrowly missed a fifth in the Bobcats’ 19-18 win over North Dakota State on Saturday.
This is the same player who became the first in NCAA history to homer in his first three career plate appearances, doing it against Northwestern on Feb. 18-19.
Mora’s big day against NDSU started with a three-run homer in the second inning. He hit a two-run homer in the third and a three-run blast in the fourth. After he flew out deep to left in the sixth, he slugged a solo shot in the eighth for his school record-tying ninth RBI.
“That fourth at-bat I was trying for it, got out of my approach a little bit, got a curveball up and hooked it a little bit and didn’t get the result I wanted,” Mora said. “I kind of banged up myself (mentally) and went back to the dugout and flushed it.
“The fifth at-bat I was trying to hunt something middle of the field, got a hanging changeup and hit it over the center field wall.”
Mora’s four homers were part of a seven-homer game for Texas State. NDSU also went deep seven times on a warm and windy day at Bobcat Ballpark in San Marcos.
Florida’s JJ Schwarz was the previous freshman to homer four times in a game, against Stetson in 2015.
Mora has been a part-time starter at second base and is batting .391 with seven homers and 17 RBIs in 23 at-bats over nine games.
IN THE POLLS
LSU (15-1) finished a 5-0 week with a three-game sweep of Samford and remains the unanimous No. 1 team in the polls.
In the D1Baseball.com rankings, Tennessee (14-3) lost a midweek game to Boston College but swept Morehead State to earn a one-rung promotion to No. 2. Mississippi is No. 3 after sweeping Purdue.
Baseball America kept Florida (15-3) as its No. 2 team and moved Louisville (14-1) a spot to No. 3.
Louisville is No. 2 and Tennessee is No. 3 in the Collegiate Baseball newspaper poll.
THREE NO-HITTERS
Western Kentucky’s Devyn Terbrak threw the first individual no-hitter of the season in a 3-0 win over South Dakota State on Sunday.
The five other no-hitters were combined efforts, and two of those occurred this past weekend.
Terbrak struck out a career-high 14 and was aided by some key defensive plays while pitching the Hilltoppers’ first no-hitter since 2009.
“I did it in high school,” Terbrak said, “but doing it at a Division I level is crazy.”
Rutgers recorded its first nine-inning no-hitter since 1978 when Jake Marshall went five innings and Ben Gorski went four in a 7-0 win over Georgia Southern on Saturday.
McNeese State’s Derrick Cherry worked six innings and Ty Abraham threw two perfect innings in a 10-0, eight-inning win over Prairie View on Saturday.
PRIDE OF THE IVY LEAGUE
Columbia of the Ivy League won two of three games at previously unbeaten Alabama for its first series win over a Southeastern Conference team.
The Lions clinched the series with a 15-3 win Saturday, sending 15 batters to the plate and collecting eight hits in an 11-run fourth inning.
SOARING EAGLES
Boston College (12-2) is out to the best start in program history after taking two of three over former top-10 Virginia Tech. The Eagles were 19-34 and haven’t made the NCAA Tournament since 2016, when they opened 11-3.
___
AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25