CHICKASHA, Okla. – Wayland Baptist was on the brink of seeing its season end here late Saturday night.
But one weather delay and one 13-run inning later, the Pioneers found new life!
Trailing 11-1, the Pioneers put together a 13-run eighth inning – scoring a dozen runs with two outs – to post an unlikely 14-12 victory over Southwestern Christian in an elimination game at the Sooner Athletic Conference Baseball Tournament.
The win in a game that ended about 15 minutes before midnight sends sixth-seeded WBU (29-21) into another elimination game at 1 p.m. Sunday against second-seeded, 25
th-ranked, tournament host Science & Arts of Oklahoma (32-17). The Pioneers will need to beat the Drovers, who are unbeaten in the tourney, twice Sunday in order to advance to Monday's championship of the double-elimination bracket against the winner of the Oklahoma City bracket, where host OCU (28-19) is undefeated and takes on No. 5 seed Southwestern Assemblies of God University, which eliminated top-seeded Texas Wesleyan on Saturday, 7-4. The 14
th-ranked Rams lost earlier in the day to third-seeded OCU, 6-2.
Wayland lost to USAO, 9-2, in a game that started at 3:30 p.m. Saturday. The Pioneers took the field about an hour later against Southwestern Christian, with the first pitch a little after 7 p.m.
The Pioneers trailed 4-1 when that game was interrupted in the bottom of the sixth inning due to lightning in the area. It looked bleak for Wayland when – with winds still whipping on the tailend of the storm – play resumed and the Eagles scored five in the seventh and two more in the eighth to take a commanding 11-1 lead.
Things were unraveling for Wayland.
But the Pioneers regrouped and went to work, getting singles by
Jake Green – who homered in the first inning for WBU's only run –
Arturo Disla and
Delvis Claudio to start things off in the bottom of the eighth. A bases-loaded walk by
Cooper Jauz brought in the first run, harmless enough, especially after the next two batters struck out.
But WBU wasn't ready to throw in the towel.
Jack Kolich singled up the middle to drive in two more. An error by the SCU left-fielder on
Justin Porter's wind-blown fly allowed the Pioneers to keep breathing. A walk by
Carson Parham reloaded the bases, then a wild pitch allowed two runs to cross, the second by the speedy Porter.
Green came up for the second time in the inning and walked on another wild pitch that plated another and made it 11-8. SCU changed pitchers and that resulted in back-to-back walks by Disla and Claudio before Jauz ripped a bases-loaded triple to left field. Those three RBIs tied it at 11-all.
After another pitching change, the Pioneers responded with a trio of RBI-singles by
Samuel Fabian,
Danny Arambula and Kolich, who had three of WBU's 11 hits. Porter then doubled to left, scoring the 14
th run but also resulting in the end of the Pioneers' fun when Kolich was tagged out at home.
The 13-run inning fell short of what's believed to be the school record of 17, which Wayland scored in the first frame of a program-record 28-8 victory over College of Santa Fe in 2009.
Garrett McClain took over on the mound for
Tyler Wade (4-3) in the ninth. Things got a little dicey when the Eagles' lead-off man boarded on an error and advanced on a wild pitch. But McClain struck out the next batter looking prior to surrendering a single then an RBI-sacrifice fly for the second out on a well-hit fly from dangerous Jhors Glmez that Porter tracked down in deep center.
Wayland coach
Todd Weldon intentionally walked SCU's clean-up hitter, freshman Dario Paredes, to bring the winning run to the plate, but the next batter was retired on a slow come-backer to McClain to end it.
