MONTICELLO, Ark. – The Southern Arkansas baseball team took the opening game of Sunday's doubleheader at No. 20-ranked Arkansas-Monticello by a score of 10-6, but UAM rallied to come-from-behind against SAU in the nightcap to force a split in the twin-bill which was played at Weevils Field in Monticello.
Moments prior to UAM (31-13, 21-8 GAC) claiming a 7-5 win in game two, Henderson State walked-off Ouachita in the third and final game of their series to give Henderson a 2-1 series win. The combination of UAM and Henderson's wins on Sunday has slotted SAU as the No. 5-seed in the upcoming Great American Conference Tournament.
As the No. 5-seed, SAU (29-18, 18-14 GAC) will now play the opening round of the tournament on the road at No. 4-seed Henderson State. That best-of-three opening round is scheduled to be played on Friday, May 6 and Saturday, May 7 with game times to be announced.
Despite being locked in as the No. 5-seed, SAU still has the ability to affect the tournament seeding on Monday. With a win over UAM on Monday, SAU would keep the Boll Weevils from sharing the regular season championship with Southwestern Oklahoma and in doing so, making UAM the No. 2-seed.
As far as play on the field on Sunday, the Muleriders continued to have their offense roll along as they scored 10 runs on 15 hits in the opener and combined for 15 runs on 21 hits across the doubleheader. Of those 21 hits, eight went for extra-base hits and five of those left the yard altogether.
The offensive output in game one gave SAU 10 or more runs scored in four of their last six games played and in those games, SAU is 4-0.
In that opening game, SAU jumped out to a 3-0 lead after a three-run top of the second inning. In the bottom of that frame, however, UAM struck for four runs to take a 4-3 lead.
In the top of the third, SAU swung back on top of the Boll Weevils and doubled them up, 8-4, thanks to a five-run inning. The big blow in that frame was a bases-clearing triple to left-centerfield with two outs off the bat of
Trevor Rucker.
The Muleriders added a run in the top of the fifth as Rucker picked up his fourth RBI of the game on a sacrifice fly out to centerfield.
A two-run homerun by UAM's Corey Wood in the bottom of the seventh made it a 9-6 game, but Rucker belted a solo homerun down the left field line in the top of the eighth to give him five RBIs in the game while also bringing the contest to its final of 10-6.
In the second game, SAU once more hit the run column first as they plated three runs in the top of the third. All three runs in the inning scored on the strength of homeruns as
Jake Tisevich connected on a two-run homer which was then followed by a solo job from Rucker as the two went back-to-back.
UAM cracked the scoreboard in the bottom of the third with a RBI-double, but a solo homerun to centerfield from
Keaton Miller in the top of the fourth gave SAU a three-run lead once more.
In the fifth inning, however, UAM rallied for four runs on three hits and one SAU error to take a 5-4 lead through five.
Another solo homerun came for SAU in the top of the sixth as
Jackson Murphy tied the game at five-all, but a two-run bottom of the frame proved to be the difference as UAM defeated the Muleriders by a final score of 7-5 in the game.
As mentioned earlier, the two teams will play one final game to decide the series on Monday at 1 p.m. That game will also serve as the regular season finale for both clubs.
