Abilene, Tex---The Pioneer baseball continue to swing the bats well, belting out 19 hits in an 18-7 victory over Hardin Simmons on Tuesday afternoon at Hunter Field. The win gives the WBU team, ranked 17th in the first NAIA poll of the regular season, a 20-3 record heading into this weekend's Sooner Athletic Conference series at Mid-America Christian University.
Senior centerfielder Todd Jeffress led the hit parade for the Pioneers, going 4-for-4 with a double, a homer and four RBI. Brett Cook increased his season batting average to .518 with three hits, including a home run, and Marcus Limon and Josh Lucas each posted their first triples of the season.
Franky Busani, who smashed a towering home run over the monster center field fence in the seventh, went 2-for-3, while Michael Prell, Lucas, Pedro Gomez, and Brett Sheppard also picked up a couple of hits.
The Cowboys had a 7-6 lead following the fourth inning, but WBU scored four runs in the fifth and three in the sixth to break open the contest, then got five more in the seventh to stretch the lead to 11 and shorten the nine-inning game due to the mercy-rule.
Senior southpaw Jason Kimzey got his second win of the season in relief of starter Trevor Stringer. Kimzey gave up a lead-off homer to the first batter he faced in the bottom of the fourth, but slammed the door on HSU from that point, allowing just one other base runner over the course of the next three innings. Brett Swett, a junior, had a runner reach on an error to lead off the bottom of the eventh, but then sat down the next three batters he faced.
