Box Score 1 | Box Score 2

MAGNOLIA, Ark. – The Southern Arkansas baseball team opened up the 2014 season with an authoritative bang on Saturday afternoon as the Muleriders totaled 30 runs on 23 hits en route to a doubleheader sweep over Augustana College inside Walker Stadium at Goodheart Field.
 
The day's first game eventually turned out to be a 21-7 blowout win for the Muleriders (2-0), but it had all the makings of a back-and-forth slugfest early on as the two teams combined for 15 runs on 13 hits over the first three innings. At the end of those three offensively-charge innings, SAU was on top 9-6.
 
After neither team scored in the fourth inning, the Muleriders ripped the game wide open as they scored 11 runs on just four hits in the bottom of the fifth inning to take a commanding 20-6 lead. One of the more significant hits in that monster inning was a two-run double by Jackson McCurdy.
 
The significance of McCurdy's double was personal for the White Oak, Texas native as it completed the cycle. Prior to that McCurdy had homered on the first pitch he saw in the first inning, tripled home three runs in third, and singled home another run earlier in the fifth inning.  All told in that first game, McCurdy would go 4-for-5 with seven RBIs in addition to hitting for the cycle.
 
The Muleriders and Vikings (0-2) would add a run each before the game was shortened after seven innings due to the 10-run rule. Preston Gray earned the win for the Muleriders in the opener after he worked three innings of scoreless relief. In his three innings, Gray (1-0) would allow just one hit, issue one walk, and strike out four.
 
The nightcap played like a pitcher's duel over the first two innings as both starting pitchers kept the opposing offenses off the scoreboard. That all changed in the third inning however as each team scored their first runs of the game.
 
The Vikings got things going in the top of the frame as they managed to score one run off of SAU starter Dylan Lynn. The damage could have been more sever for Lynn in that inning as he later worked out of a bases loaded, no one out jam by getting a fielder's choice and an inning-ending double play.
 
In the bottom of the third, the Muleriders scored four runs on five hits to jump ahead 4-1. In that inning, the SAU got RBI singles from Jon Phillips, Zach Costa, and Justin Buchanan. An inning later, the Muleriders extended their lead to 9-1 as they added five runs on four hits. In that inning, SAU got RBI doubles McCurdy, Carver Rademacher, and Trevor Rucker.
 
The 9-1 advantage for the Muleriders would stay until the top of the sixth inning when the Vikings brought the game to within four runs, 9-5, after they scored four runs on four hits.
 
That would be all that the Vikings would get the rest of the game, however, as Blake Sullivan got the final four outs of the game to secure the doubleheader sweep for the Muleriders.
 
Predicted rainy weather in the Magnolia area on Sunday has forced the day's scheduled doubleheader to be pushed back to Monday, February 3. First-pitch is scheduled for noon.