Box Score Tom Bailey took the mound for the final time at Wilder Field Friday and gave the Pioneers the pitching performance of a life time against No. 10 Oklahoma City, but Bailey and the Wayland Baptist baseball team needed something special to pull out the win.
First baseman
Gaby De La Cruz gave his team exactly what they needed, hitting a walk-off, two-run homer in the bottom of the 10
th inning to give WBU a 5-4 win.
Bailey entered the top of the tenth having thrown 119 pitches (amazingly 83 of which were strikes), but showed signs of fatigue after walking the first batter of the inning on four pitches. The senior from Perth, Australia had 13 strike outs in over nine innings of work against one of the most potent offensive teams in the country, but was forced to give way to
Corey Weldon.
Weldon (2-0), who had not given up a run in his last seven and one-third innings dating back to March 25, came in and retired the first two batters he faced. The
Stars (29-15, 17-7) sent pinch hitter Mason Toole to the plate to try and change their luck and take their first lead of the game.
Toole got the better of Weldon, launching a home run over the left-center field fence, breaking the tie and giving OCU a 4-2 lead.
For most teams, going into their final at bat, down two runs against a top-10 team, a comeback would seem impossible. The Pioneers are not that team.
Wayland (30-17, 17-7) sent freshman
Aaron Vallance to the plate to lead off the bottom of the tenth. Vallance picked up his first hit of the series with a single up the middle, then moved to third after
Mark Davis singled through the right side of the infield.
With runners on the corners and no outs,
Josh Alexander, WBU's cleanup hitter, stepped into the box representing the winning run.
Roby Romero (1-2), who had five strike outs over three innings in relief, got Alexander to pop up to second for the first out of the inning.
With one out, a wild pitch scored
Aaron Vallance, putting the tying run into scoring position in the process, cutting the lead down, 4-3. Romero knuckled down, however, getting
Damion Lovato to go down swinging for the second out of the inning.
That brought up Friday's hero,
Gaby De La Cruz.
De La Cruz quickly fell down in the count, no balls and two strikes, on two not-so-pretty swings, but the sophomore kept his cool when it mattered most.
After taking a ball, De La Cruz scorched a line drive, no-doubter over the left field fence, giving the Pioneers an improbable, 5-4, win over the Stars.
With the win, the Pioneers moved into a tie with Oklahoma City for second place in the Sooner Athletic Conference with one week left to play.
If not for De La Cruz's walk off home run, the man of the hour would most certainly have been senior pitcher,
Tom Bailey.
Bailey got the no decision Friday, but struck out a career-high 13 batters while walking just one. Bailey was perfect through five innings before hitting the first batter in the sixth inning, and held the Stars hitless before Jared Baker dropped in a single with no outs in the top of the eighth.
De La Cruz was 2-for-5 at the plate with a run and two RBIs, but Davis also put in a solid performance for the Pioneers, collecting three hits on the day, scoring what ended up being the game-tying run in the tenth. Doolittle also had a multi-hit game Friday, going 2-for-4 at the plate for WBU.
In a back-and-forth weekend, the Wayland earned its first-ever series win over Oklahoma City in the program's 23-year history.
On Friday, the Pioneers got their first run of the game in the bottom of the second when De La Cruz grounded into a 6-4-3 double play, but scored Alexander from third.
The Stars managed to even the score, 1-1, without collecting a hit in the sixth. OCU got its first runner of the game via a hit-by-pitch, then got runners at second and third after a bunt play resulted in a wild throw.
Garrett Foster missed the squeeze bunt sign, and Doolittle teamed up with
Chris Buitron to catch Josh Dickey in no-man's land for the first out of the inning.
Hunter Marcum scored on a wild pitch, however, evening the score, 1-1.
Wayland regained its lead in the seventh when Vallance took one for the team after the Pioneers worked the bases full. The two-out RBI gave WBU a 2-1 lead.
Not to be out done, the Stars scored a run in the next frame when Dickey brought in Josh Halbert with an RBI single, tying the game up, 2-2, after seven and a half innings of play.
When it was all said and done, however, Wayland earned its 30
th win of the season with some late-inning magic, taking game three, 5-4.
With the win, Wayland earned its first 30-win season since the Pioneers went 32-19 in 2010.
Wayland will travel to Canyon Tuesday with all the momentum in the world to try and avenge a 15-6 loss at the hands of No. 6 West Texas A&M. The Pioneers will then host Oklahoma Panhandle State at noon Wednesday for their final home game of the year before heading to Fort Worth to take on Texas Wesleyan in their final SAC series.
Â
