SHAWNEE – Opportunity awaits the Oklahoma Baptist baseball team this weekend when it visits East Central on Saturday and Sunday for a trio of GAC games in Ada.
This series has heavily favored the green and gold. In fact, the Bison have won 18 straight games over the Tigers and lead the overall series with a 30-4-2 record. ECU's last victory against OBU came April 2, 2016 in Shawnee.
Following a defeat to Central Oklahoma earlier this week, the Bison moved their record to 8-10. Despite that, there's plenty of reason to think this OBU squad can get some momentum going starting tomorrow at ECU.
In addition to the impressive series record against the Tigers, coach
Chris Cox's team will bring a home-run hitting ability to the ECU Baseball Field. To date, the team's 37 homers are good four fourth in the country and only three behind the national leader, Missouri Southern State. ECU will have its hands full as it has allowed a GAC-high 34 home runs.
Leading the charge individually for the Bison is
Dan Pruitt. The first baseman's 10 bombs are No. 2 in the nation. Teammate
Alex Schroeder has added eight, which is tied for 11th.
Also of note, the Bison's .559 slugging mark is slotted 12th in Division II and leads the GAC. Pruitt and Schroeder rank third and fourth, respectively, in that category. Plus, both of those players are tied for the GAC lead with 26 RBI.
OBU has also gotten contributions from
Isiah Lissade who is second in the GAC in hits (27) and tied for fifth with 19 runs scored. Centerfielder
Walker Keller has big-play ability as well with four homers and seven doubles, the latter of which ranks second in the conference.
Pitching wise, the Bison got a good showing in its last league series against SWOSU. In that series, six different pitchers were used and by completion of the third game,
Brek Galbreath,
Bo Dallas and
Devin Crawford had all earned wins while
Garrett Kellogg-Clarke notched two saves. The staff posted a 4.30 ERA and struck out 32 batters in 23.0 innings.
This year, Dallas has the fifth-best GAC ERA (2.93) while he, Kellogg-Clarke and
Tyler Frank are positioned in the top-ten with at least 26 strikeouts. As a unit, the team's 10.7 strikeouts per nine innings is slotted 25th in the nation.
ECU (1-16) comes into the weekend series on a 13-game losing streak. Most recently, they lost to Northwestern Oklahoma State and gave up 47 runs in three games. In nine of 17 games this season, the Tigers have allowed at least 10 runs.
It goes without saying, but the Tigers' pitching has struggled all year. With an ERA of 11.58, ECU is ranked 243 out of 251 teams listed on NCAA.com. Its lowest individual total is 6.75 which belongs to Brian Pasha.
Offensively, Mason Glowacki leads the team with a .313 average, 20 hits and 12 RBI while Eric Towsley and Christian Whitaker have each recorded two home runs.
