DURANT, Okla. – With two outs in the seventh, sophomore Jaxynn Dyson delivered a go-ahead RBI-single to put Southern Arkansas up 3-2 and freshman right-hander Kiana Pogroszewski worked around a two-out base runner in the bottom half of the frame to give the Muleriders a seventh-consecutive victory in Friday afternoon's Great American Conference series opener against Southeastern Oklahoma State. The two teams will decide a series winner on Saturday in a doubleheader slated for a noon start.
 
The one-run victory is the seventh such win for Southern Arkansas this season and of the 30 games the squad has played 14 have been decided by a single run.
 
Dyson accounted for two of SAU's six hits in the win which also included an RBI-double in the third inning that opened scoring and staked Mulerider starter Sydney Ward to an early lead. Southeastern Oklahoma took the lead in the fourth with two runs, but Madison Miller knotted the action at 2 by depositing a solo shot out to left field in the sixth to set the stage for Dyson's deliverance in the seventh.
 
Ward went five innings, fanned seven and allowed just three hits with the only blemishes coming in that two-run fourth that needed only one hit from the Savage Storm. Pogroszewski tossed the final two innings to earn the win; her seventh of the season, and surrendered just one hit, one walk and struck out two.
 
Jade Miller, one of the country's top hitters, did not record a hit on Saturday. She didn't need to. Miller was plunked twice and scored both times courtesy of run-scoring hits from Dyson.
 
The Muleriders' lead in the GAC standings is at two games as SAU holds a 12-3 mark in league play which is just ahead of a 10-5 league record held by both Harding and Arkansas Tech.