ENID, Okla. – The top-seeded Southern Arkansas baseball team will have to fight their way off the ropes through the remainder of the 2015 Great American Conference Baseball Tournament after suffering a heart-breaking 8-5 loss to No. 3-seed Harding in the second round on Sunday afternoon at the David Allen Memorial Ballpark in Enid.
 
The Muleriders (36-16), who were the visitors on the scoreboard, took an early 4-0 lead after scoring four runs in the second inning and carried a 5-3 lead into the bottom of the ninth before the Bisons (27-24) rallied for five runs on five hits to upend SAU and keep themselves alive in the tournament.
 
The decisive hit for the Bisons came with the game knotted at five-all and plated three runs on a walk-off homerun off the bat of Davis Richardson.
 
The tough loss forces the Muleriders into an elimination game on Monday afternoon beginning at noon against the loser of the Henderson State and Ouachita Baptist game which is currently being played.
 
In the game against Harding, SAU totaled nine hits as a team with Jon Phillips and Byron Reichstein notching multiple hits. Reichstein also plated a pair of runs on the strength of a two-run opposite-field homer out to left-centerfield in the second inning. On the mound, SAU received a solid start from Colton Strother as the lefty worked into the ninth inning and came to within an out of his first complete game of the season before the Bisons chased him from the game.