BETHANY – Oklahoma Baptist (26-19, 16-15 GAC) scored in all but two innings during a 14-6 win at Southern Nazarene on Friday. With the victory, the Bison secured a berth into next week's Great American Conference Tournament.
OBU's offense, as anticipated, was very good against the Crimson Storm. There were 17 hits, three of which were home runs, and six different players recorded multiple hits.
Isiah Lissade,
Dan Pruitt,
Kade Self and
Trey Furrey all had three while Pruitt and Self each added home runs. Plus,
Alex Schroeder and
Rafael Gutierrez collected two hits.
On the mound,
Brek Galbreath got the win going 6.2 innings, striking out 10 and inducing a combined nine groundouts and fly-ball outs. Reliever
Diego Chavez continued his recent strong play as he closed out the last 2.1 frames with three strikeouts and one allowed earned run.
Pressure was applied early by the green and gold with two runs in the first. Back-to-back singles by Pruitt and Self allowed
Jayden Shafer to break the scoreless tie. Later, Pruitt scored on a wild pitch.
A couple innings passed before a three-run third. Highlighting that inning was an RBI double from Pruitt and a two-run blast by Self. OBU led 5-1 at the point.
As for SNU, it was held scoreless from the second through the sixth frames. Galbreath allowed just three hits in that span and only three Crimson Storm players reached scoring position. Of note, SNU's leading batter DJ Van Atten, a player that led the GAC in six different offensive categories, was held to a pair of singles in five at-bats.
OBU's final big inning came in the seventh. There were RBI hits from Schroeder,
Troy Shields and Furrey. Plus, Gutierrez delivered an RBI groundout and
Austin Gonzales drove in a run with a sacrifice fly to left.
Tomorrow, the two teams will meet at noon for a doubleheader.
