SHAWNEE – Oklahoma Baptist won twice more against Southern Nazarene on Senior Day on Saturday at Bobby Cox Field at Ford Park. The green and gold won by 6-3 and 16-1 scores on a 70-degree day whilst boosting its record to 26-20 and 18-15 in the GAC.
Those wins locked OBU into the sixth seed for next week's conference tourney in Hot Springs, Arkansas where they'll face third-seeded Harding on May 7 at 7 p.m.
GAME ONE
After SNU took a 1-0 lead on a homer if the first, the Bison responded quickly with a pair of home runs in their at-bats.
Isiah Lissade socked a solo shot before
Kade Self notched a two-run bomb four batters later, pushing the home squad ahead 3-1. That score remained for just a short time before the Crimson Storm tied things up.
In the top of the third, a two-out walk was issued to Colby Entwistle. What followed was a DJ Van Atten two-run double to left center which plated the tying runs.
After that hit, both defenses and pitchers got into a groove.
For OBU's
Brek Galbreath, he didn't allow another SNU batter to reach scoring position. From the fourth through the end of the game, Galbreath allowed just a single, two walks and induced seven groundouts.
In the other dugout, SNU's Casey Minchey kept the potent OBU attack in check. He did give up several hits, but he also got out of a bases-loaded jam in the fifth and ended up striking out eight.
It wasn't until the eighth that the 3-3 tie was broken. During that frame,
Trey Furrey and
Cade Kissel registered back-to-back, one-out singles. In the next at-bat, SNU tried to turn a double-play ball off the bat of
Jose Parga. However, an errant throw from the second baseman sailed over first and allowed Furrey to score.
Walker Keller then drove in Lissade and Parga with a single to right, moving the tally to 6-3.
In the ninth, Galbreath (6-3) retired the side.
GAME TWO
Jake Hamilton continued his late-season surge with his most dominant outing of the year. He tossed six frames, gave up just one run and fanned a season-high 12 batters. In fact, Hamilton (2-2) retired the first 10 batters he faced which included eight strikeouts.
With that fantastic defensive play, OBU jumped ahead 4-0 after three innings. Highlighting those runs was a two-run home run from Self in the third.
The Bison then turned things up in the fourth, fifth and sixth frames when they scored four runs in each.
Fourth-inning action saw a Pruitt two-run, two-bagger down the left-field line which made the tally 7-1. A frame later, Pruitt roped a triple to right-center field which pushed Keller and Lissade home. Then in the sixth,
Ramon Gomez and
Troy Shields each notched two-run bombs to right for OBU's final tally, 16-1.
Tyler Frank then closed the game in the seventh. Making his first appearance since Feb. 28 against Ouachita, a game in which he got injured, he retired the SNU side with three groundouts.
