ARKADELPHIA – The Ouachita Baptist University baseball team earned its fourth Great American Conference series victory of the season with a double header split against Southwestern Oklahoma State on Saturday at home.
SWOSU (11-14, 6-9 GAC) won the first game on Saturday by a final score of 8-6 to set up the rubber match in the series finale. After pounding out double-digits runs and hits in yesterday's 14-4 win in game one, the Tigers (16-9, 11-4 GAC) did it again in game three, winning 15-7 on 13 hits.
Ouachita had its most productive weekend as a team in the series win over SWOSU, going 37-for-93 at the plate for a .398 team batting average. The Tigers scored 35 runs and pounded out 10 extra base hits, including six homeruns. Three of those homeruns came off the bat of Wyatt Core, who hit an even .500 this weekend with a 1.143 slugging percentage.
After a hard-fought game in Saturday's first game, the second half of the double header looked to be heading the same way with a 3-3 tie in the top of the fifth. However, the Tigers sent 12 batters to the plate in the bottom of the fifth and plated nine runs in the rally, highlighted by a three-run homerun by Core and a two-run single by Dustin Bermudez. Bermudez struck again in the sixth with a two-run double to highlight a three-run inning and give him four runs driven in for the game.
Although he was responsible for driving in only one run in the game, CW Schrader led the Tigers at the plate with a 3-for-4 performance. Bermudez, Core, Tallon Heine, and Cade Burris all had two hits in the win.
Cameron Marchant moved to 3-0 on the mound this season with a quality start, giving up only two earned runs in the first five innings.
In the first game on Saturday, the Tigers outhit the Bulldogs 10-6, but SWOSU held Ouachita scoreless in the first five innings and then used a four-run seventh inning to cushion its lead to salvage one win in the series.
G. Allen broke up the shutout with a three-run homerun in the bottom of the sixth, his team-leading sixth homerun of the season. Core had an RBI single in the seventh to trim the deficit to three, and Isaac Nowell hit a two-run homerun in the eighth to finalize the scoring.
Ouachita left the potential game-winning run on base in the ninth.
Eight Tigers registered at least one hit in the loss, led by Bermudez and Core with two hits each.
Ouachita heads west for four games in Oklahoma next week, including a non-conference game at East Central on Wednesday and a three-game GAC series at Northwestern Oklahoma State over the weekend.
