Bison Advance to GAC Championship Game

ENID – It took extra innings but Oklahoma Baptist continued its impressive postseason win streak Monday with a 4-3 win over Arkansas Tech in 10 innings in the Great American Conference Baseball Championship Tournament.
 
Jake Gozzo got the walk-off winner with a bases-loaded single to right and Oklahoma Baptist extended its postseason win streak to 23 games with the victory Monday. OBU won 10 games in each of their NCCAA championship runs the previous two seasons.
 
The win makes OBU the first Oklahoma team to reach the GAC championship game when they play Southern Arkansas at noon Tuesday. The Bison need only to win one game in two tries Tuesday to claim a conference title and an automatic berth to the NCAA Regionals.
 
Southern Arkansas has won 13 consecutive elimination games as a program.
 
Bison starting pitcher Thomas Shroder had his best outing of the season, shutting out Arkansas Tech through seven innings but the bullpen relinquished three runs in the ninth.
 
Shroder, who had pitched five innings only once this season, struck out three in his 109-pitch outing.
 
"My team needed me to pitch well today and that was all the motivation I needed," Shroder said. "I thought if I could keep us in it through five innings we would have a chance to win."
 
Juan Gonzalez homered to left to give the Bison a first inning lead, tucking one inside the foul pole on an 0-2 pitch.
 
OBU added two in the third. Brett Bloomfield singled and Gonzalez walked and both runners moved up on a balk. Zane Gelphman plated Bloomfield on a sacrifice fly and Gonzalez came in on an RBI single by Jake Gozzo.
 
In the 10^th, Bloomfield walked, Gonzalez singled to right and both runners moved up on a wild pitch. Gelphman was intentionally walked. Gozzo promptly burned the right fielder for the game-winner on the first pitch he saw.
 
"I take it a little personally when someone intentionally walks the batter ahead of me," Gozzo said. "I actually had visualized that situation in the top of the 10^th and I got the chance."
 
It was the eighth walk-off hit in GAC Tournament history.
 
Gelphman played spectacularly at third base, taking away a few base hits, including a fully-extended diving grab of a line drive in the second inning.
 
The Bison were held to eight hits, including two apiece by Bloomfield, Gonzalez and Gozzo.
 
Caleb Bly moved to 7-1, getting the win in relief.