Bison Rally Falls Short

SHAWNEE – Oklahoma Baptist hit back-to-back home runs twice and Jake Gozzo belted a pair of round-trippers in a 9-8 loss to Arkansas Tech Friday.
 
OBU scored three in the second inning. Zane Gelphman singled before Josh Timms drove a gapper to right center. The ATU right fielder lost his footing and Timms had a two-run inside-the-park home run. Jake Gozzo followed with a more traditional home run to give the Bison a 3-2 lead.
 
The Wonder Boys took a 4-3 lead in the third and went up 5-3 in the fourth.
 
OBU narrowed the lead to 5-4 in the fifth when, with two outs, Brett Bloomfield walked and Juan Gonzalez doubled him home.
 
Gozzo tied it in the sixth with his second home run.
 
The Wonder Boys took a 9-5 lead into the bottom of the ninth. Garrett McKee drew a leadoff walk and Matt Poulin clouted a two-run home run to left to make it 9-7.
 
Brett Berghammer then got just enough of one to hit the top of the left field fence and go over for a solo home run to make it 9-8.
 
The Bison had the tying run at second with two outs but came up one big hit shy of tying the game.
 
OBU had 10 hits, including two each by Berghammer, Gonzalez, Timms and Gozzo.
 
Albertus Barber (4-2) took the loss. Thomas Shroder had 1.2 perfect innings of relief.
 
The teams meet again Saturday, wrapping up the series with a 1 p.m. doubleheader.