SHAWNEE – Harding came back from an early 5-1 deficit and defeated Oklahoma Baptist 7-5 on Sunday at Bobby Cox Field at Ford Park.
HU improved to 12-3 and 3-3 in the Great American Conference while the green gold moved to 6-7 and 2-4 in league play.
Isiah Lissade led the OBU offense with two hits while on the mound,
Ryan Turbeville tossed five innings and got six strikeouts, both season-highs.
Early on, the Bison looked primed to complete the three-game sweep over the visitors from Arkansas. After HU took a 1-0 lead heading to the home half of the first, OBU responded in a big way.
Three of the first four batters reached which included hits by
Kade Self and
Rafael Gutierrez. Then after a
Gabe Irwin walk, junior shortstop
Jose Parga sent a towering shot to left center, a grand slam. It was Parga's first bomb this season.
A frame later, Self's sacrifice fly to right allowed
Dan Pruitt to score and extended the lead to 5-1.
After that, though, Harding pitcher Davis Welch got into a groove against the potent Bison attack. In fact, from the fourth through the sixth frames, just two Bison reached scoring position.
With that, Welch used his defense and got several ground ball and fly-ball outs to allow HU's offense to get in gear.
After the Bisons scored a single run in the fifth, HU scored two more on sacrifice flies in the sixth to make it a 5-4 ballgame. Then in the eighth, Harding continued to get ahold of OBU's pitching and took the lead for good.
Seth Johnson pushed Harding in front for the second time with a two-run homer and made the score 6-5 before a wild pitch allowed Coulton Doyle to score the team's seventh run.
For the green and gold, they would find two base runners in the final two frames but no big hits to cut into the two-run deficit.
On Feb. 28, OBU will return to the diamond for a 3 p.m. game against Emporia State.
