Foust, Flores help send Pioneers to victory

Brendon Foust homered twice and Matt Flores went 4-for-4 to lead 12^th-ranked Wayland Baptist to a 16-13 win over Southwestern Christian in the opener of a Sooner Athletic Conference series Friday afternoon at Wilder Field. The Eagles took the nightcap, 5-3.

The teams will reconvene at 1 p.m. Saturday for the rubber game.

Friday's first game – played in winds close to 30 mph blowing out toward left field– saw the Pioneers (18-7, 8-2 SAC) and Eagles (16-8, 8-5) combine for 29 runs and 28 hits. Runs were scored in every inning except the first.

After the Eagles scored five in the second, Foust got things rolling for the Pioneers with a two-run blast in the bottom of the inning. Wayland scored four runs in each of the third and fourth innings – including a solo shot by Austin Moya who went 3-for-5 and a 3-run homer by Foust in the fourth – to take an 11-7 lead.

The visitors from Bethany, Okla., scored three in the fifth to close to within 11-10, but Wayland came up with a pair in the bottom of that frame and three more in the sixth for some breathing room.

Foust wound up with six RBIs while Moya and Flores had three each. Braeden Bomer, courtesy running for catcher Jonathan Ottenwalder who singled, walked twice and was hit by a pitch, scored four runs.

Tanner Solomon (2-0) earned the win in relief of Kevin Torres, who struggled in giving up seven runs on seven hits in two innings. Solomon went 2 1/3, allowing three runs on three hits. Jonathan Frost earned his first save, giving up three runs on five hits in 2 2/3.

The high winds began to die down during Game 2, and the pitchers were grateful as the Pioneers and Eagles combined for a meager eight runs and 15 hits in the 5-3 SCU win.

In a battle of left-handed starters, Wayland's Juan Arroyo and SCU's Juan Carlos Gonzalez went head-to-head most of the way. Gonzalez (5-1) wound up the win, tossing a five-hitter while striking out 10 and walking two. He threw 125 pitches.

Arroyo (0-1) offered 103 pitches in his 6 1/3 innings, giving up four earned runs on 10 hits with six strikeouts and a walk.

The Eagles' Diogen Ceballos had the big blast, a three-run homer down the left-field line that gave his team a 3-0 lead in the third.

Wayland got all three runs back – on a sacrifice fly by Gregg Veneklasen in the third and on an RBI-groundout by Foust and an unearned run in the fourth.

But the Eagles' 6-foot-8, 270-pound first baseman Slayton Vaughan broke the tie with a solo homer to right in the fifth. The Eagles added an insurance run on a sacrifice fly in the seventh.

The Pioneers managed only one base runner in their final three at-bats.