ARKADELPHIA, Ark. – It took two extra innings, but the Southern Arkansas baseball team picked up a road win at Ouachita, beating the Tigers by a score of 5-2 on Tuesday afternoon at Rab Rodgers Field.
The win over the Tigers (7-18) on Tuesday in non-conference play completed a season sweep for the Muleriders (18-9) over Ouachita as SAU recently swept the three-game Great American Conference series, which was played in Magnolia this past weekend.
In a predetermined pitching rotation, two Mulerider arms saw their first action of the season as
Timothy Buchanan and
Travis Johnson took to the hill over the first two innings. Buchanan would get the starting nod and the redshirt junior left-hander was crisp as he worked a perfect inning with a pair of strikeouts on just nine pitches. Johnson, a senior right-hander, pitched the second inning and also worked a scoreless frame and picked up a pair of strikeouts as well.
In the top of the third, the Muleriders would put the first runs on the board as a RBI infield single by
Trevor Rucker and a RBI sacrifice bunt by
Josey Langston accounted for the two runs scored in the inning.
That score would hold until the bottom of the sixth when the Tigers pushed across a pair of runs to knot the game at two-all.
Both runs were scored off of
Landon Simpson, who came on in relief to begin the bottom of the sixth. Despite surrendering the two runs, Simpson would settle in as he went on to pitch four more innings as the game played on into extra innings.
During those four innings, Simpson would allow just two hits while striking out seven.
With Simpson tossing scoreless innings, the Muleriders would break through in the top of the 11th for three runs to take a 5-2 lead.
Now staked to a three-run lead, the Muleriders turned the ball over to
Jared Fielden and a 1-2-3 inning nailed down Fielden's fourth save of the year with his last three saves coming against the Tigers and over the last four days.
The Muleriders will now prepare for a return trip to Arkadelphia this weekend, but this time they will be taking on Henderson State in a three-game series beginning on Friday, March 25.
