ALVA, Oklahoma – The Ouachita baseball team split its first two Great American Conference contests of the season on Friday on the road in a 3-2 win over Northwestern Oklahoma State in game one and a 5-3 loss to the Rangers in game two.
In game one, Northwestern (8-2, 1-1 GAC) plated two runs in the bottom of the first inning, but Tiger pitchers
Cooper Timmons and
Cameron Marchant kept the Rangers scoreless throughout the rest of the game. Timmons earned a no decision after giving up two runs on four hits with six strikeouts in the first six innings. Marchant earned his first win of the season with three scoreless innings in relief.
The Tigers (4-4, 1-1 GAC) tied the game at two in the fifth inning on an RBI single from
Joseph Bolin and later an RBI double by
Tallon Heine, who also tripled in the win. The go-ahead run for the Tigers came in top of the eighth on an RBI double from
Cade Burris.
The Rangers threatened in the ninth, but a double play to end the game kept the potential game-tying run from scoring.
In addition to Heine's multi-hit performance in game one, Bolin also had two hits. As a team, the Tigers outhit the Rangers 8-6 in game one.
Game two started similarly to game one with the Rangers striking for runs early in the game, one coming across in the first and two more coming in the second.
The Tigers rallied in the third inning to score all three of their runs, including an RBI double by
G. Allen, an RBI single by
Dustin Bermudez, and an RBI fielder's choice groundout by
Isaac Nowell.
Ouachita had chances to tie or take the lead again in the fourth, sixth, and seventh innings, but left two runners on base in two of those innings, and finished the seven-inning game by grounding into a double play to end the contest in the seventh.
Heine added two more hits to give him four for the day.
Kieran Theriot went 2-for-3.
The Tigers only used two arms in game two with
Chase Oberle tossing the first four innings and
Hayden Childers tossing two innings of scoreless relief to finish the game.
The Tigers and Rangers will decide the series with the rubber match on Saturday starting at noon.
