WARRENSBURG, Missouri – The Ouachita Baptist University baseball team fell behind the pace it set in the top of the first inning on Friday, resulting in a 12-7 loss to Augustana in the winner's bracket of the NCAA Division II Central Regional Tournament at Crane Stadium/Tompkins Field.
The Tigers (33-23) are now set to face off against the tournament host, Central Missouri, once again on Saturday in an elimination game starting at 2 p.m. Ouachita beat UCM 5-4 in the opening round on Thursday. The Mules (44-8) avoided elimination with a 9-6 win over Minnesota State earlier on Friday.
In Ouachita's loss to Augustana (46-10-1), 12 of the combined 19 runs came via the homerun. The Tigers opened the scoring with back-to-back homeruns in the top of the first inning from
Dustin Bermudez and
Wyatt Core, their seventh and ninth homers of the season, respectively.
The Vikings answered with a solo homerun in first, and then took their first lead with two runs on a triple in the second inning.
Ouachita got back on top in the third on one swing, a two-run homerun by
Tallon Heine, his third of the year. His blast gave Ouachita its last lead of the game at 4-3.
That Tiger lead was short-lived as Augustana scored five runs on five hits in the fourth inning, including two homeruns. The Vikings added three more in the sixth and one in the seventh.
With a four-run lead, Augustana's starting pitcher Ryan Jares (8-2) settled in and kept Ouachita out of scoring position again until the seventh inning.
Down by eight heading into the final two innings, the Tigers rallied in each of the final two frames, loading the bases with no walks in each inning, but getting only three runs across. All three came in the eighth inning with the Tigers going station to station with walks, moving up on wild pitches, and getting RBI singles by
Jud Arrington and
CW Schrader.
Bermudez, Schrader, and
Isaac Nowell accounted for six of the 11 Ouachita hits. All three went 2-for-4 in the loss.
The winner of Saturday's game between Ouachita and UCM will face Augustana in the finals on Saturday at 6 p.m.
