ENID, Okla. – The Arkansas Tech baseball team opened up their 2025 Great American Conference Tournament with an emphatic 19-5 run-rule win in seven innings against No. 8-seed Southeastern Oklahoma on Thursday afternoon.
The top-seeded Wonder Boys fell behind early to Southeastern as the Savage Storm scored twice in the top of the first on a two-run home run from recently-named GAC Player of the Year, Wesley Mitchell.
Tech was able to get a run back in their half of the first on a RBI single to shortstop by
Christian Olea. Southeastern would push their lead back out to a pair of runs in the top of the third as Mitchell hit a solo home run. Once more, however, the Wonder Boys had an answer in their half and scored a run on a RBI double to right-centerfield by
Sawyer Duddleston.
After the Savage Storm went 1-2-3 in the top of the fourth, the Wonder Boys took complete control of the game in the bottom half and created all sorts of chaos using small ball and sacrifice bunts.
In the fourth, Tech scored five runs on four hits and forced Southeastern to commit three errors. The first two of those errors came on sacrifice bunt attempts by Tech while the third was on a steal attempt of second base.
An inning later, the Wonder Boys added eight more runs on five hits and in the sixth tacked on four more for good measure to bring their run total to 19 and their hit total to 16. The 19 runs scored by Tech tied a GAC Baseball Tournament record. The first instance came in 2016 when Arkansas-Monticello beat Harding 19-5 in game one of that year's best-of-three opening round series.
The Wonder Boys will now advance in their bracket and will play the No. 4-seed Harding Bisons, who won their opening game on Thursday against No. 5-seed Ouachita Baptist, 11-1 in seven innings.
