Arkansas Tech University announces Wonder Boys drop first game of Opening Round Series to Oklahoma Baptist
RUSSELLVILLE, Ark. – The No. 3-seed Arkansas Tech baseball team came out on the short end of Game One of their best-of-three series against No. 6-seed Oklahoma Baptist on Friday night, losing by a score of 6-4.
The Wonder Boys (31-19) will now need a win in Game Two of the series to force the "If Necessary" game against the Bison (29-20) later that same day. Game Two of the series is scheduled to start at 1 p.m. on Saturday afternoon from Baswell Field.
In Friday night's series-opener, the Bison got out to an early 2-0 lead with a couple of runs scoring in the top of the second inning. The Wonder Boys would get one of those runs back in the bottom of the frame on a sacrifice fly off the bat of Markos Cabranes. His sac fly scored Nick Jones, who led off the inning with a single through the left side. That second-inning knock by Jones was the first of what ended up being four in the game.
Oklahoma Baptist came back in the top of the third and added two more runs on the strength of a two-run home run by their catcher, Alex Schroeder. Once more the Wonder Boys would score themselves in the bottom of the frame, but weren't able to hang a crooked number.
In the bottom of the third, Sawyer Duddleston smoked triple to left-centerfield to extend the inning. Jones then ambushed the first pitch and laced a RBI double to right field.
A half inning later, the Bison lead was back out to three, 5-2, on a solo home run, this one from their leadoff hitter, Isiah Lassade. That score held until the bottom of the sixth when the Wonder Boys scored twice to pull within a run.
That sixth inning was led off with a single by Jones. Two batters later, Logan Schwenke doubled to right-centerfield to chase Jones to third. Brandon Bunton then grounded out to third base, but it was placed well enough to score Jones from third. Cabranes then collected his second RBI of the game as he singled to left-centerfield, scoring Schwenke.
Both teams would go down in order in their next trips to the plate in the seventh inning as Tech's John Gray finished his start strong and Oklahoma Baptist's reliever Nolan Feazle got off to a good start in his outing.
In the eighth, the Bison picked up a run of insurance on Tech's bullpen on a leadoff home run by Schroeder, his second of the game. Ethan Fritz would shake off that initial batter and struck out the next two batters as he went on to limit the damage.
In the bottom of the frame, Jones recorded his fourth hit of the game as he singled with one out, but the Wonder Boys were not able to do anything that inning.
Fritz then struck out two more batters and worked around a one-out double in the top of the ninth to keep the score where it was, 6-4 in favor of Oklahoma Baptist.
In the bottom of the ninth, the Wonder Boys continued to face Feazle and were quickly down to their final out after a pair of one-pitch outs before eventually being retired in order to end the game.
Original source can be found here.