CANYON, Texas – Junior Marshall Kasowski continued to show why he is one of the most dominant pitchers in all of Divisoin II as the junior threw six scoreless innings with 12 strikeouts as the Buffaloes of West Texas A&M defeated UT Permian Basin 9-3 on Friday evening in front of 215 fans at David & Myrt Wilder Park in Canyon. The Buffs went 14-for-36 with four doubles and one triple in the opening game of the four-game set. With the win, the Buffs improve to 22-5 overall and 4-1 in Lone Star Conference play while the Faclons fall to 7-18 and 0-1 in LSC play.

A schedule change has been made due to potential weather as the Buffs and Falcons will play a single nine inning game tomorrow starting at 1 p.m. with the doubleheader moving to Sunday with a scheduled start of 1 p.m.

Kasowski (6-2) got off to a commanding start as he struck out two of the three Falcon batters to in the top of the first before the Buffs had four hits in the bottom half of the inning knocking in two runs. Jimmy Cubillos got things started with a single up the middle followed by a Adam Adkins double down the right field line on the first pitch his saw to put runners on second and third with one out.  Luis Amaro picked up two RBIs with a single up the middle on a 0-1 count to plate both Cubillos and Adkins.

The top of the second didn't go as smoothly for the Kasowski as he allowed his only three hits of the night to load the bases with one out. The Conroe, Texas native then proceeded to strikeout Andrew Donovan looking before getting Chris Ortega to ground out to the shortstop to end the inning as the Falcons stranded three runners.

The Buffs added two more runs in the bottom half of the second after Aaron Vallance reached base on a fielder's choice to the shortstop with one out. Cubillos moved Vallance over to second with his second hit of the game up the middle. Nick Canas extended his hit streak to 23 games with a double to right center to plate both Vallance and Cubillos giving the Buffs a 4-0 lead.

After a 1-2-3 top of the third, WT added three more runs in the bottom half of the inning as Troy LaBrie got things started with a walk. John Baiada followed that up with a double over the right fielder's head putting runners on second third with no outs. Chad Brown drove home LaBrie with a blooper over the second basemen to move Baida over to third.

Kasowski continued to dominate in the fourth as the junior stuck out the side swinging bringing his strike out total to eight after four innings pitched. The trend continued in the top of the fifth where he struck out two Falcons to reach 10 strikeouts for the sixth time this season.

The Falcons threatened to get on the board in the top of sixth after Doug Clapperton reached first on an error before stealing second with no outs. He moved over to third on a fielder's choice to the left side before Kasowski buckled down and struck out the next two Falcons to end the threat and bring his strikeout total to 12. Canas made it 7-0 in the bottom of the sixth after coming into score on a wild pitch after a triple to center field.

Tate Huebner came into to pitch for the Kasowski in the seventh and proceeded to sit the Falcons down in order before the Buffs added two more insurance runs in the bottom of the eighth as LaBrie and Baiada led the inning off with back-to-back to singles. After Brown flied out to right field, Nelson Paredes loaded the bases when he was hit by a pitch on a full count. LaBrie and Baiada came around to score making it 9-0 on an error from the UTPB second baseman on a hard hit ball from Vallance.

UTPB showed some fight in the top of the ninth scoring three runs but it wasn't enough as Thomas Garland got Doug Clapperton to fly out to Vallance with runners on first and second ending the g ame.