Pioneers need spark before SAC starts

Box Score 1 | Box Score 2 Hoping to gain momentum before the start of Sooner Athletic Conference play next weekend, the 20^th-ranked Wayland Baptist baseball team instead dropped two games to No. 25 MidAmerica Nazarene (Kan.) on Saturday afternoon at Wilder Field, 9-0 and 12-4.

The visiting Pioneers, members of the Heart of America Conference, also won twice on Friday, 13-12 and 10-2.

In Saturday's first game, MNU's Matt Terrones (3-1) gave up just four hits to Wayland (8-10) while striking out six and walking two in the seven-inning shutout.

Meanwhile, MNU (8-3) got nine of its 10 hit and all nine runs (four earned) off WBU freshman pitcher Colin Isbell (0-1). MNU scored four runs in both of the second and fourth innings.

Wayland got close to avoiding its second shutout of the season when the Pioneers got their only runner of the game to third base. But MNU ended the scoring chance and the game on a 5-4-1 double-play.

MNU's bats stayed hot for game two as the visitors used seven hits and a Wayland error to score twice in the first and six in the second for an 8-0 lead, most of those off freshman Bryson Calaway (0-4), who gave up six hits in 1 1/3.

WBU tallied its first run of the afternoon in the bottom of the second when Gaby De La Cruz singled and later scored on freshman Dylan Norris' sacrifice fly.

MNU got that run back plus on in the fourth for a 10-1 lead. Wayland put up another run in the fifth on another SAC fly, this one by freshman Manuel Rios that scored Ernesto Lizardi who reached on MNU's lone error of the day.

After MNU pushed across single runs in each of the sixth and seventh inning, Wayland picked up two in the seventh on Rios' RBI-single and another sacrifice fly by Norris.

WBU wound up with nine hits, three by De La Cruz and two each by freshman Juan Ponce, Rios and freshman catcher Derek Farmer.

MNU finished with 14 hits off four WBU pitchers: Calaway, Taylor Bridges, Caleb Swofford who is coming off injury, and freshman Mitch Naylor.

???????Wayland opens conference play in Bethany, Okla., next weekend against Southwestern Christian (10-5), winners of its last three of Crowley's Ridge College. The Pioneers and Eagles will play a doubleheader at 2 p.m. Friday followed by a single game at noon Saturday.