ENID, Okla. – The Southern Arkansas baseball team will play for their fourth-straight Great American Conference Tournament Championship on Tuesday afternoon after SAU staved off elimination once more on Monday by handing Henderson State a 6-2 loss in the final game off the day at the David Allen Memorial Ballpark in Enid.
 
Earlier on in the day, the Muleriders (38-17) knocked off Ouachita Baptist by a score of 4-2 in what was an elimination game for both teams. In that OBU game, the Muleriders were given a great starting pitching performance from Yumezo Densaki over 8.1 innings and then received a shutdown effort out of the pen by Jared Fielden to close out the game. Against Henderson, a similar storyline played out as SAU got six solid innings from starter Preston Gray and three sensational shutout innings in relief from Jace Powers to seal the deal.
 
With the win, the Muleriders advance to Championship Tuesday and will take on either No. 4-seed Henderson State or No. 6-seed Southeastern Oklahoma as the two will play each other in an elimination game starting at Noon on Tuesday afternoon.
 
In the game against Henderson, SAU got on the board first with a single run in the top of the first inning, but the Reddies (26-18) matched that tally in their half of the frame to knot the game at one-all early. In the third, the Muleriders took another one-run lead on a RBI single by Carver Rademacher, but as was the case in the first, HSU answered back in their half of the third with a solo homerun out to left field.
 
After neither team scored in the fourth, the Muleriders plated four runs on five hits in the top of the fifth to take a 6-2 lead. In that inning, Korey Keith led off with a four-pitch walk which was then followed up with consecutive singles from Billy Germaine and Rademacher to load the bases with no outs. In the ensuing at-bat, Byron Reichstein would lift a sacrifice fly out to right field to score Keith.
 
During the next at-bat, Rademacher was cut down trying to steal second for the second out of the inning, but the Mulerider rally would only grow stronger with two outs as Trevor Rucker doubled down the left field line to score Germaine. A batter later, Chris Quinn laid down a well-placed bunt single to put runners on the corners. Justin Buchanan then doubled the Mulerider lead from two runs to four runs as he doubled down the left field line to score Rucker and Quinn.
 
That four-run fifth proved to be the difference as the game would go scoreless over the final innings of play making the final score 6-2 in favor of SAU.