RUSSELLVILLE, Ark. – The No. 2-seed Arkansas Tech baseball team took care of business on Monday afternoon at home as the decisive third game of their best-of-three series with No. 7-seed Ouachita Baptist resumed and ultimately ended with Tech winning 7-2.
With inclement weather wreaking havoc throughout the state of Arkansas this past weekend, the Wonder Boys and Tigers made the decision to play their first two games of their series on Friday to hopefully avoid Saturday, but needed to play a third game after splitting the first two.
On Saturday, the start of the game was delayed by three hours and then was thrust into a lightning delay that ultimately led to a suspension of the game in the bottom of the fourth after about a three-hour delay. With even worse weather coming on Sunday, the decision was made to resume the game on Monday afternoon.
At the moment of the suspension of the game, the Wonder Boys were leading 3-2 in the bottom of the fourth with
Markos Cabranes at the plate facing a 2-0 count.
Once play resumed on Monday, Cabranes finished his at-bat, but grounded out to shortstop for the first out. The second out was picked up in the next at-bat, but
Logan Schwenke extended the inning with a first-pitch single through the left side.
Nick Jones then drew a four-pitch walk to pass the baton to
Christian Olea, who singled home Schwenke to make it a 4-2 game.
Keaton Ranallo followed with a RBI single himself to give the Wonder Boys a three-run lead, 5-2. After
Brendyn Bard was hit-by-a-pitch by the new Ouachita pitcher,
Shane Poe drove in the third run of the frame for Tech with a single.
In the top of the fifth,
Grant Shahan returned to the mound after he initially came on in the top of the third back on Saturday. Shahan would work a scoreless inning and was quickly given another run of insurance in the bottom of the fifth on a leadoff home run by
Markos Cabranes.
That ended up being the last of the scoring for either team as Shahan pitched the game through the sixth before handing off to
Simon Murray, who tossed a dominant seventh inning.
Will Horton then made his third appearance of the series in the eighth and retired the Tigers in order.
In the top of the ninth, Horton walked the leadoff batter, but then retired the next three batters to put the finishing touches on the win for the Wonder Boys.
With the win, the Wonder Boys advance in the GAC Tournament and will move on to the Final Four this coming weekend at Dickey-Stephens Park in North Little Rock. The Wonder Boys' first opponent in the double-elimination format will be No. 3-seed Harding. First-pitch for that game is at 5 p.m. on Thursday, May 9.
Tickets for the tournament can be found at the following link:
https://www.ticketreturn.com/prod2new/BuyNew.asp?EventID=345435
