Box Score 1 | Box Score 2

RUSSELLVILLE, Ark. – The No. 17-ranked Southern Arkansas baseball team captured their sixth straight conference series on Sunday as they split the afternoon's doubleheader against the No. 19-ranked Arkansas Tech Wonder Boys after taking the first game by a score of 11-3 and dropping the second game by a score of 2-0.
                     
In the opener, the Muleriders (21-10, 14-4 GAC) employed a balanced offensive attack as they pounded out 17 hits with eight batters in the lineup contributing at least one hit. Out of those eight batters, four had multiple hits with Jason Dahl and Ryan Dardenne totaling four hits apiece.
 
Dahl and Dardenne, along with Brady Capshaw, also drove in multiple runs in the first game. Two of Dahl's three RBIs came on solo homeruns as he would hit bombs in consecutive at-bats in the eighth and ninth innings.
 
The runs for the Muleriders in the opener started piling up early in the game as they crossed the plate twice in the first inning to take a 2-0. After the Wonder Boys (24-10, 11-4 GAC) scored a run in the bottom of the second inning, the Muleriders answered back with a run of their own in the next half inning to push their lead back out to two runs, 3-1.
 
Over the next two innings, the two teams would trade single runs to make the score 4-2 heading into the sixth inning. In that sixth inning, the Muleriders tacked on a pair of runs to extend their lead to 6-2. Over the final three innings of play, the Muleriders would score five more runs to take a comfortable 11-2 lead into the bottom of the ninth inning.
 
The Wonder Boys would get a solo homerun from Thomas Biocic in the bottom of the ninth inning, but that would be just a blip in the inning as Mulerider starter James Baune was able to close out the inning without further damage as he secured his third complete-game of the season.
 
The day's final game featured a classic pitcher's duel between Tech's starter Jake Bell and SAU's starter Jon Mark Abbey. Both pitchers matched one another seemingly pitch for pitch until the bottom of the third inning when Biocic hit a 3-2 offering from Abbey out to right field to give the Wonder Boys a 2-0 lead. That Biocic round-tripper wound up being the game-winner as the Muleriders were unable to score on Bell.
 
The Muleriders would keep Bell from going the distance, however, as they brought the go-ahead run to the plate with one out in the seventh inning. To start that inning, Telvin Darden roped a double down the left field line. A batter later, Darden would reach third base as Ryan Bell grounded out to the first baseman. After issuing a walk to William Townsend, J. Bell would record the second out of the inning, but he was then lifted in favor of Boone Weiss. Weiss would only need one pitch to collect the save as he got Philip Menou to fly out to centerfield to end the game.
 
The Muleriders will next be in action on Tuesday, March 26th as they will take on Wiley College in a doubleheader starting at 2:00 p.m.