SHAWNEE – The last out-of-conference road game for Oklahoma Baptist comes tomorrow when the Bison travel to Emporia State for a 4 p.m. game at Glennen Field.
These two teams met before on Feb. 8 in Edmond with the green and gold earning a 9-0 win.
OBU is coming off a week in which it defeated Central Oklahoma 12-6 and dropped two of three at Arkansas-Monticello. The last of those games against UAM brought a 5-0 win.
Over the course of those four contests, the Bison broke the school's previous single-season home run record, running their national-leading total to 96. Plus, catcher
Alex Schroeder tied the program's D2 single-season home run mark when he launched his 20th in the game-three win at Monticello.
To date, his 20 bombs are three off the D2 lead. Schroeder is also ranked highly within the GAC: He leads in homers and RBI (59) and is fourth in slugging (.781).
Here are some other Bison that rank among the best in the GAC:
Kade Self: Boasts top-four marks in batting (.400) and slugging (.785)
Dan Pruitt: GAC leader in runs scored (59), slugging (.867) and triples (4)
Isiah Lissade: ranks in the top-nine in hits (59), homers (14) and stolen bases (13)
On the mound, OBU has relied mainly on
Nolan Feazle,
Sam Gamboa,
Garrett Kellogg-Clarke,
Will Duncan and
Devin Crawford during mid-week games. In fact, the last two mid-week contests have seen the Bison coaching staff trot out four pitchers each time.
This season, the green and gold rank second in the GAC in strikeouts (375) and sit in the top half of the league in opponent batting average (.279).
The other dugout features Emporia, a team that has won three of its last four.
TJ Racherbaumer leads the Hornets' attack with a .352 average to go with 15 doubles and eight homers. Additionally, Sam Chaput boasts an .346 average and team-high 14 stolen bags while Blake Carroll and Noah Geekie each bat above .313.
On the mound, Emporia is led by Jared Kengott's 3.36 ERA. He has only allowed 10 extra-base hits this season out of the 56 he has given up. Geekie has the most strikeouts (55) and wins (6) for the Hornets staff while Braden Meek has the most appearances (16). In the save department, Carl Aikman has four.
