Box Score Video OKLAHOMA CITY – It was not the Pioneers' most flawless day in the field, but it still turned out great on it…to the tune of a record-breaking win that could lead to even bigger and better things for the Wayland Baptist baseball team.
Wayland overcame five errors and a near disastrous third inning with a flurry of early runs as the No. 24 Pioneers defeated No. 22 Texas Wesleyan here Sunday afternoon, 10-8, for their program record 44
th win that advances them to the championship game of the Sooner Athletic Conference Baseball Tournament.
The Pioneers (44-14) will play for their first-ever SAC title when they take on No. 16 Science and Arts of Oklahoma (44-11) at 1 p.m. Monday back at Oklahoma City University's Jim Wade Field. While Wayland won all three of its games to advance out of the OCU bracket, USAO did the same in winning the bracket on its home field in Chickasha, breezing past St. Gregory's, 14-4, and Mid-America Christian, 10-2, before clobbering Southwestern Christian on Sunday, 16-3.
Wayland won the series against the Drovers when the teams met in late March in Plainview, prevailing 1-0 and 5-2 with USAO posting a 12-2 victory.
Monday's winner earns the conference's automatic bid into the NAIA National Tournament Opening Round. The loser should also qualify with an at-large bid as both the Pioneers and Drovers have distanced themselves from the rest of the SAC and should move up in the final regular-season poll, to be announced at 1 p.m. Friday, two hours prior to the announcement of the 46 national championship opening round qualifiers and opening round brackets via live selection show on
www.NAIA.org.
Though they figure to be a shoo-in for an at-large berth, the Pioneers would like nothing more than to win their first-ever conference title and qualify outright for just their second-ever national tournament appearance.
They got the chance to play for the title with Sunday's 10-8 slugfest win over Texas Wesleyan (39-17), which followed a 13-8 victory over the Rams on Saturday. Texas Wesleyan then eliminated host OCU on Saturday evening, 12-8, giving Wayland another shot at avenging three regular-season losses to the only team to sweep a series from the Pioneers all season.
Sunday's victory – Wayland's eighth straight – gave the Pioneers their most wins in a season in the 25-year history of the program, surpassing back-to-back 43-win campaigns in 2008 (43-16-1) and 2009 (43-15), the only year Wayland has appeared in the national tourney.
Wayland came out hot, scoring nine runs in the first four innings. The problem was the Rams scored six runs in the third.
But the Pioneers allowed Wesleyan only two more runs over the final six innings as senior
Logan Evans came on to earn the win while
Kevin Torres recorded the final four outs for the save.
Will Bass went 3-for-5 and
Gregg Veneklasen 3-for-3 as the Pioneers ended with 11 hits, one fewer than the Rams. Bass also produced three RBI, as did
Alex Mumm, while Bass,
Brayden Blackwell, Mumm and
Austin Davis all scored two runs apiece.
Bass led off the game for Wayland with a double then scored on Veneklasen's single. Bass also played a big role in the Pioneers' three-run second with a two-RBI single up the middle that followed
Taylor Grady, after an intentional walk to load the bases, being hit by a pitch.
Wayland's 4-0 lead went out the window in top of the third when the Rams scored six runs on six hits and a couple of errors.
The Pioneers quickly regrouped, though, tying the score on Mumm's two-run homer to left in the bottom of the inning. Veneklasen opened the frame with a single to shortstop.
Wayland changed pitchers with two gone in the top of the fourth, with Evans coming in for starter
Jonathan Frost facing runners on second and third with one out. Evans got the second out on a looking strikeout while out number three came on the same play when the Pioneers caught a Ram stealing home as catcher
Ernesto Lizardi threw to shortstop Bass before Bass came back home with it.
WBU regained the lead with three critical runs in the bottom of the fourth.
Austin Davis reached first on a passed ball third strike then scored after a sacrifice by Grady and RBI-single by Bass. After Blackwell and
Jake Doyle walked to load the bases, Mumm came through with a two-out, two-RBI double to left-center.
That was all the cushion Evans and Torres needed.
The Rams scored once in the sixth and once more in the eighth following a couple of WBU miscues in the field. Torres took over on the mound with two out in the eighth and the tying run at the plate in clean-up hitter James Ziegler, whom Torres promptly struck out after falling behind in the count 0-2.
Wesleyan again got its lead-off batter on base in the ninth, but he was retired on a 4-6-3, Grady-to-Bass-to-Davidson double-play. Then, after walking the next batter to again bring the tying run to the plate, Torres got Chandler Schoelkopf to foul out to Davidson at first.
Evans ended with four strikeouts in 4 1/3 innings, having allowed two runs (one earned) on two hits. Torres gave up one hit and struck out one in his 1 1/3 innings of work. Frost went 3 1/3 innings, allowing six runs (five earned) on nine hits with no Ks and three walks.
