Box Score BETHANY, Okla. – Baseball fans got their money's worth this weekend as Wayland Baptist and Southwestern Christian opened Sooner Athletic Conference action by playing three extra-inning games. Unfortunately for the 20
th-ranked Pioneers, they lost two of them.
After dropping Friday's scheduled seven-inning series opener, 1-0 in eight, Wayland won game two after it was suspended due to darkness and resumed at noon Saturday, 5-4 in 11 innings. Thirty minutes after that game ended, the Pioneers and Eagles played another extra-inning affair, this one going 10 innings and with SCU prevailing, 5-4.
The results leave Wayland with a 9-12 overall record, 1-2 in SAC play. SCU moved to 14-6, 2-1.
On Saturday, the Pioneers first finished off Friday's second game, which was suspended in the bottom of the 11
th after Wayland took a 5-4 lead in the top of the inning.
Gaby De La Cruz put the Pioneers ahead with an RBI-single that scored
Gregg Veneklasen, who got on board via an error. Wayland had the bases loaded with no outs and couldn't score any more, but it didn't matter as the Pioneers overcame a two-out error and a walk with a groundout to first to end the game.
After not scoring for the first 14 innings Friday, Wayland got on the board on its first at-bat Saturday, taking a 1-0 lead in the first inning of game three thanks to an RBI-single by Veneklasen that scored Bass, who singled.
The Pioneers made it 2-0 in the third on another lead-off single by Bass and another RBI-single by Veneklasen.
SCU struck for three runs on four hits and an error in the bottom of the fourth, knocking out Wayland starter
Kyle Eifert.
The Pioneers responded immediately with a run in the fifth to tie it at 3 as
Dylan Norris, after being hit by a pitch, scored following
Taylor Grady's bunt, Bass' sacrifice bunt and
Hector Romero's RBI-groundout.
Both teams scored a run apiece in the eighth, Wayland's coming when Romero drew a lead-off walk, went to second on Veneklasen's SAC bunt, and scored on
Ernesto Lizardi's single.
Wayland went three-up, three-down in the ninth and 10
th frames before the Eagles won it in the bottom of the 10
th on one hit, an error and three straight walks to close it out.
The Pioneers ended with six hits, three by Lizardi and two by Veneklasen. Wayland was hurt by three errors and seven walks from four Pioneer pitchers: Eifert,
Collin Isbell,
Nicholas Moore (0-1) and
Bryson Calaway.
Wayland returns home for its next seven games, all non-conference beginning with doubleheaders against future SAC member Central Christian (Kan.) on March 10 and 11.
