ARKADELPHIA – Senior pitcher
Cooper Timmons became just the second Ouachita baseball pitcher ever to reach 300 career strikeouts in a 13-0 complete-game shutout victory over East Central on Saturday at home in game one of a Great American Conference series between the two sets of Tigers.
Timmons (2-2) finished the game allowing no runs on just four hits with 11 strikeouts and just one walk for his second career complete game shutout. ECU reached scoring position just twice in the game, and at one point, Timmons retired nine ECU batters in a row. The League City, Texas native now has 308 career strikeouts, just five away from Steve Smith's school record of 313 from 2005-2008.
While Timmons was keeping the orange Tigers (5-22, 2-11 GAC) scoreless, the purple Tigers (13-10, 7-6 GAC) backed him with their third straight game with double-digits in the runs and hits columns. Ouachita scored its 13 runs on 16 hits, highlighted by a seven-run rally in the fourth inning.
Ouachita started its offensive onslaught with a two-run double from
Wesley Scott in the first inning and then struck for four runs in the second inning on an RBI double by
Dustin Bermudez and RBI singles from Scott and
Isaac Nowell.
The seven-run seventh inning featured eight straight batters reaching base, and was highlighted by back-to-back two-run doubles from
Cade Burris and
Tallon Heine. Bermudez, Nowell, and
Michael Quinones also had run-producing at bats in the rally.
Kieran Theriot led the purple Tigers with a 3-for-3 outing. Scott, Nowell, Burris, Heine, and
G. Allen all added two hits in the win. Scott and Bermudez extended their double-digit hitting streaks to 15 and 12, respectively. Allen extended his hitting streak to nine games and his team-leading on-base streak to 22 games.
Games two and three of the series are set for a Sunday doubleheader starting at 1 p.m. at Rab Rodgers Field.
