ALVA, Okla. – The Southern Arkansas baseball team finished up their longest Great American Conference road trip of the season with an 8-6 win over Northwestern Oklahoma State on Sunday afternoon, and thus giving SAU the series, 2-1.
As in the first two games of the series, the Muleriders' (14-8, 6-3 GAC) bats were rolling as they hammered out 17 in the series finale on Sunday. Across the three-game set, SAU would total 40 hits as their team batting average continues to rise.
On Sunday, the Muleriders got the scoring started in the first inning on a RBI single to right field off the bat of
Korey Keith, scoring
Billy Germaine, who doubled in the previous at-bat. An unearned run scored for NWOSU in the second inning to tie the game at one-all, but SAU regained the lead in the third on a solo homerun by
Jon Phillips.
The score would remain 2-1 in favor of SAU until the fifth when the Rangers' (9-10, 4-8 GAC) Jeff Martin tripled home the tying run.
In the sixth, however, the Muleriders would once again take the lead, this time by scoring four runs on four hits in the frame.
Justin Buchanan led off that inning with a solo homerun to put SAU on top and four batters later, Germaine singled in
William Townsend, who singled himself (one of five hits in the game) following Buchanan's homerun. Keith followed that up in the next at-bat with a RBI single as well. The four-run sixth was then capped with a RBI sacrifice by
Trevor Rucker, scoring Germaine.
The Muleriders would go on to add single runs in the seventh and eighth innings on sacrifice flies off the bat of
Chase Harvey and Rucker to make it an 8-2 game.
Those insurance runs would prove to be vital as the Rangers rallied for four runs in the bottom of the eighth to make it a two-run game, 8-6. The big blow in the home eighth was a three-run homerun by Joshua Caruso.
That would be as close as the Rangers would get, however, as
Travis Johnson came in and picked up the final four outs to nail down his second save of the season.
The Muleriders will have a busy week ahead while remaining on the road as they travel to take on regional-rival Delta State in a mid-week game on Wednesday, March 11 and then playing a three-game conference series at Ouachita Baptist over the weekend. First-pitch for the game at Delta is scheduled for 6 p.m. while the OBU series is set to begin on Friday, March 13 at 2 p.m.
