SHAWNEE – The final conference home stand of the season comes this weekend for the Oklahoma Baptist baseball team. Tomorrow at 6 p.m., the Bison host Southern Nazarene, the start of a three-game series at Bobby Cox Field at Ford Park.
The green and gold are in good shape to clinch a berth into May 7th's GAC Tournament. A series win guarantees that, but a single win probably does that too. In series history against SNU, OBU owns a 24-10-1 advantage including winning 13 of the last 14.
Two days ago, the Bison (23-20) rallied for a 10-5 road win against Emporia State. It marked the 17th time this season that the team had scored at least 10 runs. As has been noted throughout the year, this Bison team has one of the best offenses in America. Take a look:
| 2nd in homers (97) |
Alex Schroeder: 3rd with 20 HRs; 15th with 59 RBI |
| 5th in slugging (.585) |
Dan Pruitt: 5th with 19 HRs; 7th in slugging (.857) |
| 22nd in scoring (9.0) |
Kade Self: top-4 GAC marks in slugging (.785) & BA (.400) |
| 24th in runs scored (388) & hits (475) |
Isiah Lissade: 6th in the GAC in HRs (14); 9th in total bases (110) |
| 38th in team batting average (.316) |
Walker Keller: 4th in the GAC in stolen bases (13) |
Pitching-wise, the Bison, over the last two weeks, have found some consistency. Their ERA in that span (5.90) is lower than their season average (6.28). The staff has notched 108 strikeouts in 100.2 innings pitched with
Brek Galbreath leading the way with 23 and
Jake Hamilton adding 21.
This season, OBU ranks 31st in the country in strikeouts per nine innings (9.9). Galbreath and
Bo Dallas also rank in the top-eight of the GAC in strikeouts and each are in the top-12 in ERA.
In the other dugout is Southern Nazarene, a team that started the year 1-17. Since then, they are 12-17 and currently have a 13-34 record, 6-24 in the GAC.
The Crimson Storm's offense is a decent one. They rank near the middle of the pack in slugging (5th), on-base percentage (6th), home runs (t3rd) and fifth in total bases (707). Leading the way individually is EJ Taylor. He is the GAC leader in the following: batting average (.444); on-base percentage (.542) and hits (68).
After Taylor, teammate Brian Brown boasts a .385 average with 17 doubles, a top-two mark in the conference. Brown has also notched 13 homers. Rounding out SNU's top batters is Tyler Broyles who is third on the team with a .311 batting average.
On the mound, SNU has had troubles. They rank 11th of 12 in ERA (10.56) and are dead last in opposing batting average (.374) and strikeouts (222).
Oliver Wilson possesses the team's best ERA at 7.36 while Patrick Hine is next at 7.62. Casey Minchey leads the way with 41 strikeouts in 54.1 innings pitched.
