DURANT, Okla. ­– After seeing an early five-run lead, 6-1, slip away and eventually end in an 11-6 loss in the first game of Friday's doubleheader, the Southern Arkansas baseball team took their frustrations out on Southeastern Oklahoma in a major way in the nightcap as the Muleriders crushed the Savage Storm by a score of 25-4 to force the twin-bill split.
 
The 25 Runs scored by Muleriders (27-14, 14-9 GAC) in game two on Friday tied a Great American Conference single-game record and were the most runs scored in a game since the 2009 season when SAU hung 29 runs on then Gulf South Conference opponent Christian Brothers.
 
The monster offensive display in the nightcap started in the top of the second inning with the Muleriders trailing 4-0 after the Savage Storm (14-19, 10-8 GAC) plated four runs on four hits in the bottom of the first inning off of SAU starter Preston Gray. The big blow in that bottom of the first was a three-run homerun to right-centerfield off the bat of Corban Taylor.
 
That early 4-0 deficit for the Muleriders would be cut in half quickly in the second as Billy Germaine led off the frame with a ground rule double down the left-field line. After a wild pitch advanced Germaine to third base, Carver Rademacher made it a two-run game as he unleashed his fourth homerun of the year with a two-run blast to left-centerfield.
 
Four batters later, SAU knotted the game at four-all as William Townsend singled home Trevor Rucker and Byron Reichstein. A strikeout looking of Chase Harvey followed and was the second out of the second inning, but the Muleriders would get four-consecutive singles and chased home three runs in the process to make it suddenly a 7-4 game in favor of the Muleriders.
 
That three-run lead would double to a six-run lead in the blink of an eye as Rucker capped what was a 10-run second for the Muleriders with a no-doubt, three-run homerun over the scoreboard in left field.
 
Now staked to a 10-4 lead, Gray came out in the bottom of the frame and needed just six pitches to work a perfect inning and bring the heated up Mulerider bats back to the plate.
 
In that third inning, SAU would score five more runs to run the lead out to double-digits, 15-4. Picking up RBIs in the third were Jon Phillips on a one-run single through the right side, and Germaine on a two-run single through the left side. Justin Buchanan scored the first run of the inning on a throwing error by the Southeastern catcher and Germaine accounted for the fifth run as he scored on a wild pitch.
 
Another efficient and perfect inning on the mound by Gray in the bottom of the third set the stage for the Mulerider offense to get back to work in the fourth. In that inning, SAU would score nine runs on six hits with the biggest blow being a grand slam off the bat of Byron Reichstein. Two batters before Reichstein's granny saw Rademacher drive in a pair of runs on a single to left field, giving him six RBIs for game two and running his total for the day to eight. Rademacher would also finish the doubleheader going 7-for-10 at the plate and scoring three runs.
 
After being held off the board in the fifth, SAU tacked on one final run in the sixth on a RBI single by Chase Harvey to make it a 25-4 game. That score would hold up the rest of the way through as Gray worked around a two-out double in the sixth and consecutive two-out singles in the seventh to go the distance and pick up his sixth win of the season.
 
The rubber game of the series will be played on Saturday afternoon at the Ballpark in Durant with a scheduled first-pitch time of 1 p.m.