Box Score On a day in which Wayland honored its nine senior baseball players, three of those seniors had leading roles in the Pioneers' 9-8 win over St. Gregory's University. Aldo Mendez knocked in five runs and got the win in relief, and Gabe Sandersius scored the winning run on Nic Shadle's walk-off base hit in the bottom of the tenth inning.
The three-game series sweep over the Cavaliers coupled with Southern Nazarene's doubleheader loss to Rogers State on Saturday assures the Pioneers a spot in the Sooner Athletic Conference Baseball Tournament which is scheduled to be held May 4 through May 7. Wayland and Lubbock Christian will share hosting duties with four-team pool play at each university's field. The championship game will be at Wilder Field on Saturday the 7th.
In Friday's game, the Pioneers took a 2-0 lead in the first when Ben Christian hit a one-out triple to right centerfield and scored on Miguel Pagan's base hit to left.
SGU tied it with a runs in the third and fourth innings, then took the lead with two in the sixth. In the Pioneer half of the sixth, Pagan and senior Kevin Hennessey reached on consecutive walks before Mendez's three-run blast over the rightfield fence. Brian Embery followed that up with a triple and crossed home plate on Oscar Rivera's base hit to put the WBU on top 6-4.
Wayland got two more in the seventh to make it 8-4. That was the way it remained until the top of the ninth when the visitors evened things up with four runs on two hits, a walk, a hit batter and an error.
Plainview junior Jobi Sanchez got the first two outs of the tenth, but gave way to Mendez issuing a walk. Mendez walked the first batter he faced before getting a fly ball out to end the inning.
Sandersius, who entered the game in the top of the inning when Mendez moved to the mound, reached base on a one-out single to center in the bottom half of the tenth. Pinch hitter Chris Lee followed with a looping fly ball that landed just in front of the Cavalier rightfielder. That brought up Shadle, the WBU leftfielder, who drove the 1-2 pitch to the gap in left center, bringing home Sandersius from second base.
Kevin Burbank went the first seven and two-thirds innings for WBU. The junior southpaw allowed four runs on nine hits, walked four and struck out three.
The Pioneers, now 25-25 on the year and 11-15 in conference action, wrap up the regular season with four games next week. On Monday evening Wayland hosts Lubbock Christian at 6:30, and then Coach Brad Bass's squad travels to Shawnee, Okla. for a three-game series against Oklahoma Baptist on Friday and Saturday.
