The baseball team is second place in the Great American Conference (GAC) after winning the series against Northwestern Oklahoma State University in Alva, Okla. on April 10 and April 11. The team won 13-1 and 9-1 on April 10 and 13-6 on April 11, putting their conference record at 14-7, good for second place in the GAC standings behind Ouachita Baptist University.
The team’s hitting game was strong on April 11. The team had 17 hits overall and junior pitcher Collin Campbell said he believes that came from the team’s intense focus as of late.
“We have been playing really well the past few weeks and have put ourselves in a spot to have a chance to win the conference championship,” Campbell said. “We won both games Friday and already had the series won going into Saturday, but we obviously did not want to stop there. We wanted to go ahead and sweep so we just carried the momentum into Saturday from Friday’s games.”
Throughout the three games, the team scored in seven different innings. It was junior catcher Jaxon Mohr who put the team ahead from 1-1 to 4-1 with his three-run home run. Mohr was not the only one who played well at the GAC Series Sweet. Red-shirt junior Zac Stewart went 3 for 4 with three runs, four RBIs, a triple and two doubles. Red-shirt juniors Davis Richardson, Jacob Stripling and Hunter Payne, as well as red-shirt freshman Zach Beasley also kept the bat and home plate hot. Richardson, the starting catcher, said the team always wants to improve.
“Jaxon Mohr absolutely crushed a home run in the top of the second inning that gave us the lead again after Northwestern Oklahoma University had tied the game at 1 after the first inning,” Richardson said. “Stewie, Zac Stewart, also had a big day with three extra base hits. red-shirt junior John Chapman had a really good weekend as well, and senior Kyler Offenbacker and red-shirt senior Shane Kinnear both extended their hitting streaks to 11 games each.”
The team won second place last weekend, but is training hard to take first at the GAC Championships, their final conference, this weekend.
“Something that I believe has fueled us to improving this season is believing that we can be as good as we want to be,” Campbell said. “We all work hard day in and day out and we carry that into the games, and it has really shown the past few weeks. I think we are getting hot at the right time.”
