Golden Eagles punch ticket to next round with 6-5 win over Dallas Baptist
The Oral Roberts University Golden Eagle baseball team extended their winning streak to 21 games Sunday with a 6-5 win over the Dallas Baptist Patriots to win the Stillwater Regional.
Sunday’s narrow win over Dallas Baptist puts the Golden Eagles into this weekend’s Super Regional in Eugene, Oregon, against the Oregon Ducks in a Best-of-3 series. The winner of the Super Regional will punch its ticket to the College Baseball World Series June 16-26 at Charles Schwab Field Omaha in Omaha, Nebraska.
Oral Roberts was the fourth seed in the Stillwater Regional and drew the host Oklahoma State Cowboys – the 11th seed in the regional tournament – in a first-round battle of state teams this past Friday evening.
The Golden Eagles broke a scoreless tie with a pair of runs in the top of the third. Oral Roberts added three more in the fifth for a 5-0 advantage after four and one-half innings of action.
The host Cowboys tallied two runs in the home half of the fifth to make it a 5-2 contest, while Oral Roberts extended its lead to 6-2 with a run in the top of the sixth.
Oklahoma State plated two runs in the bottom of the eighth to cut the ORU lead to two, 6-4, with one inning remaining in regulation.
After the Golden Eagles were unable to increase their lead in the top of the ninth, the Oral Roberts defense kept the host Cowboys off the scoreboard in the last of the frame to walk away with the 6-4 victory.
Oral Roberts punched their ticket to the winner’s bracket finals with a hard-fought 15-12 win over Washington in Saturday’s winner’s bracket semifinal round.
In Saturday’s winner’s bracket semifinals, Washington jumped out to an 8-0 lead after two innings, including a 7-run bottom of first.
Oral Roberts cut the deficit in half, 8-4, with four runs in the top of the third, then added three in the fourth and five in the fifth to take over the lead, 12-8, after four and one-half innings of action.
Washington made it a 12-10 contest with a pair of runs in the bottom of the sixth.
Oral Roberts plated a run in the top of the seventh, while Washington countered with two runs in the last of the inning for a 13-12 ORU lead after seven innings.
The Golden Eagles added two runs in the top of the eighth to extend their lead to three, 15-12.
The Oral Roberts defense kept the Cougars off the scoreboard in their final two at-bats of regulation to put the Golden Eagles one win away from capturing the Stillwater Regional championship.
Dallas Baptist began the regional tournament with a 9-5 loss to Washington last Friday, then defeated Oklahoma State 18-4 in the first elimination game on Saturday, ending the host Cowboys’ season.
Dallas Baptist earned a spot in Sunday’s winner’s bracket finals with a 9-1 win over Washington in Sunday’s elimination contest.
In Sunday’s winner’s bracket finals, Oral Roberts opened the scoring with two runs in the bottom of the first. Dallas Baptist cut the ORU lead in half, 2-1, with a run in the top of the sec- ond, while the Golden Eagles plated a pair of runs in the home half of the second for a 4-1 advantage.
Dallas Baptist tied the score at 44 with a 3-run home run in the sixth.
Oral Roberts regained the lead at 6-4 with two runs in the bottom of the sixth, while Dallas Baptist tallied a run in the top of the seventh to make it a 6-5 contest.
The Golden Eagles kept Dallas Baptist off the scoreboard in the final two innings of regulation with the final out coming on a groundout to third with the tying run on first to award Oral Roberts the 6-5 win and the regional championship.
Oregon punched its ticket to this weekend’s Super Regional with an 11-2 win over Xavier on Sunday in the Nashville Regional winner’s bracket finals.
