Bison Staff Gets No-Hitter

SHAWNEE – Oklahoma Baptist got a staff no-hitter, claiming a nine-inning 9-0 win over Baker Saturday at Bison Field at Ford Park.
 
Carson McPherson (1-0), Zach Fowler, Blake Whitehead, Jace Wilkins and Nick Burnham racked up 12 strikeouts along the way in adding their name to the school record book.
 
"Anytime you have Johnny Wholestaff and designate guys to go inning by inning, you never know," said Bison pitching coach Cody Painter. "Everybody has to do their job and it just takes one guy to not get prepared in the bullpen and not be ready to go. I'm just proud of everybody. Everybody did a good job getting ready. That the thing about the first week of February; we only had three weeks to get everybody's arm ready. They have been working hard every day and it showed."
 
McPherson went three innings and struck out six and Fowler went three innings and gathered two strikeouts. Whitehead pitched the seventh, Wilkins struck out one in the eighth and Burnham struck out the side in the ninth. Baker drew three walks but left just one runner aboard.
 
It was the first no-hitter since Nathan Thompson's gem against McMurry 10 games ago. It was the 11^th no-hitter by the Bison all-time and the second combined no-hitter.
 
OBU got all the runs it needed in the first on an RBI single by Zane Gelphman. The Bison added two more runs in the second with an RBI double by Dustyn Cook and an RBI single by Kevin Olmeda.
 
The last six Bison runs crossed the plate in the fourth inning on an RBI single by OImeda, a sacrifice fly by Juan Gonzalez, a two-run triple by Gelphman, and RBI single by Josh Timms and a wild pitch that scored Bob English.
 
All nine Bison starters got a hit as OBU piled up 17 hits for the game. Olmeda, Gonzalez, Hunter Heath, Gelphman, Tims, Moran, English and Cook all had two hits each.

Now 2-0, the Bison return to action Friday with a 3 p.m. game against Oklahoma Christian.
 

All-Time Bison No-Hitters
Year	Pitcher(s)	Opponent
1959	John Fluke	Northeastern State
1981	Joe Cunningham	Oklahoma Christian
1982	Joe Cunningham	Langston
1986	Russ Childers	Oklahoma City
1995	Kirk Bragg	Hastings
2001	Todd Brown	Bartlesville Wesleyan
2005	Tabor Woolard (perfect game)	Peru State
2014	Jordan Morales and Frankie Wright	Texas Wesleyan
2015	Kelvin Rivas (season opener)	York
2016	Nathan Thompson (NCCAA Regional)	McMurry
2017	Carson McPherson, Zach Fowler, Blake Whitehead, Jace Wilkins, Nick Burnham	Baker