Wells dominates from the mound in win over Marshall

A stellar pitching performance by junior starting pitcher Levi Wells was enough for the win as Texas State knocked off Marshall 5-1.

Having gone through the bumps and bruises throughout the season, Wells has been focusing on staying healthy.

“I’ve been battling some injuries for the past couple of weeks,” Wells said. “I’ve been doing my best to stay in the training room day in and day out while getting to 100%. I’m still getting better each and every week which is a positive.”

Wells had a complete game performance throwing a full nine innings while allowing just six hits, no walks, one run and striking out 13 batters.

Being no stranger tothrowing a complete game, Wells was ready to go through the full nine innings.

“It was super cool to give the bullpen a day off ,” Wells said, laughingly. “Last year I was able to throw a complete game against App State. The guys on the team last year got to see me do that. One of the freshmen came up to me in the dugout in the eighth inning and asked if I wanted it. I asked if he wanted it.”

The performance speaks to Wells' ability to do anything and everything for his teammates.

“I just wanted to show them that this hasn’t gone anywhere,” Wells said. “I’m willing to jump on that grenade for the boys at any given time and any day of the year. I was willing to put myself out there in the ninth regardless of how much energy or juice I had left in the tank.”

The complete game was a huge positive for Head Coach Steven Trout as not only did Wells put out in an outstanding performance but he was also able to rest some of his bullpen pitchers who had their hands full throwing against Texas on Monday and Tuesday.

“That is a dominant performance,” Trout said. “He was ahead of them all night long and had all his pitches going. He kept competing, kept wanting baseball and never wanted anyone to finish the game for him. With the complete game, we were able to rest Triston Dixon and Jack Stroud, who were used a lot on Tuesday.'

On the offensive side of the ball, the Bobcats kicked things off with a 2-run home run by left fielder Jose Gonzales in the first inning to put Texas State up 2-0.

Despite Marshall gaining a run back during the fourth inning, Texas State responded with a RBI single by center fielder Ben McClain to put the Bobcats back up at 3-1.

Shortstop Davis Powell followed up with a RBI single of his own to extend the lead at 4-1.

Right fielder Cade Manning added the final run of the game by scoring by way of a wild pitch to make it 5-1.

Though the Bobcats stranded 11 runners, Trout was happy about his team's ability to force walks and score in different ways.

“Offensively I’m never satisfied because I felt like we left some runs out there,” Trout said. “But we were going up against a really good arm who was throwing 97. I thought we did a good job of barreling him up and grinding out some walks. Then our one, two, and three hitters came up with some big RBIs to make it happen.”

Texas State returns to play today in the third game of the three game series.

First pitch is at 11 a.m. at Bobcat Ballpark.