NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – The Arkansas Tech baseball team out-hit No. 3-seed Harding on Thursday night, 9-7, but were not able to out-score the Bisons as Harding won 5-1 to advance to the winner's bracket final against top-seeded Arkansas-Monticello on Friday morning.
With the loss, the Wonder Boys will play an elimination game against No. 5-seeded Southern Arkansas on Friday afternoon starting at 3 p.m. The winner of that game will turn around and play a second-straight elimination game against the loser of UAM and Harding earlier in the day.
In their game against Harding on Thursday, the Wonder Boys fell behind 1-0 in the top of the second when the Bisons struck first with a leadoff home run. Tech would knot the score in the bottom of the fourth as
Christian Olea drove in
Logan Schwenke on a ball hit to shortstop that was misplayed by Harding.
Earlier in the inning,
Grant Jones led off with a single to left. He was then erased on the base path as Schwenke hit into a fielder's choice. During the ensuing at-bat, Schwenke stole second and then got to third on a base hit by
Nick Jones. The Wonder Boys then scored their lone run of the game in the next at-bat and were threatening for more, but an inning-ending double play was turned by the Bisons.
Harding then regained the lead in the top of the fifth after stringing together consecutive two-out hits. The first was a double to left-center, while the second was a ball that had eyes up the middle of the infield.
The Bisons would go on to tack on insurance runs in the final three innings with sacrifice flies in the seventh, eighth and ninth to provide enough of a cushion to secure the win.
