OKLAHOMA CITY – For the Mid-America Christian University baseball team, generating opportunities for their offense was not an issue on opening day in their double-header against William Woods University. The issue was taking full advantage of those opportunities.
Mid-America (0-2) stranded 16 base runners and hit into five double plays in the two games, as William Woods (2-0) swept the twin-bill by scores of 6-4 and 6-2.
Keisy Portorreal worked a 1-2-3 top of the first frame in the opening game, and the Evangels offense immediately went to work. Kevin Lentzner was hit by the first pitch of the bottom of the frame, Diego Pachardo followed with a double to left-center, and Logan Gipson worked a walk to load the bases with no one out. With WWU starting pitcher Adam Grunden on the ropes, Antonio Dorado stepped to the plate for MACU, but Grunden induced a 4-6-3 double play, and the Evangels scored only one run in the frame.
Portorreal continued to dominate on the mound into the third inning, but after he retired the first eight men in a row – five of them on strikes – Josh Nichol laced a double to left field, and after a wild pitch allowed courtesy runner Jordan Smith to reach third, Brian Granton chopped a grounder up the middle that hit the second base bag for an RBI-single to tie the score at 1-1.
Dorado singled up the middle to lead off the fourth, and again the Evangels loaded the bases with no one out. Again, however, they managed only one run as Dorado scored on an RBI fielder's choice off the bat of Raymond Rodriguez to give MACU the 2-1 lead after four innings.
The score remained unchanged into the top of the sixth frame, when the Owls put two men on with two out and forced Portorreal from the game. Against the Evangels' bullpen, the Owls broke through with a Nolan Aherin two-RBI single that ignited a four-run rally, and the Owls grabbed a 5-2 lead.
The Evangels got a leadoff double from Luis Sanchez in the bottom of the sixth, and Manuel Hazoury reached on an error, putting runners at the corners with no one out, when Axel Poesmans stepped to the plate. Poesmans, however, bounced into a 6-4-3 twin-killing, and though a run did score, the rally was squelched, and heading to the seventh, the margin remained at 5-3 in favor of the Owls.
William Woods loaded the bases in the top of the seventh, and Seth Keith came in from the MACU bullpen, tasked with preventing any further rally, and though he retired all three batters he faced, Tyler Cunningham managed a sacrifice fly to right center to add a run to the Owls lead.
Lentzner and Gipson each doubled in the bottom of the seventh frame, but the Evangels managed only one run in the inning, and the Owls held on to take the win, 6-4.
Grunden (1-0) allowed two runs – only one earned – on five hits in five innings of work to earn the win, and he walked two and struck out four. Portorreal (0-1) took the tough loss as he yielded three earned runs on three hits and two walks in five and two-third innings, but he fanned nine in the outing. Ryan Furtney (1) earned the save for WWU, despite giving up two earned runs on three hits in two innings with one strikeout.
Pachardo and Sanchez were each 2-for-4 with a double in the game for MACU, and Sanchez added a run scored. Lentzner scored twice in the game, and Dorado scored a run as well.
In game two, the teams put on a power display in the early innings, despite the wind blowing in steadily from left-center. Cunningham belted a long two-run homer in the top of the first to give the Owls the early 2-0 lead, and the long ball parade was just beginning. MACU's Aaron Davis launched a solo blast in the bottom of the second inning to cut the deficit in half, but the Owls answered in the third inning when Marquise Doherty belted a long two out, two-run homer into the teeth of the wind to push WWU's lead to 4-1. The Owls added two runs in the fourth inning to push their lead to 6-1, but MACU continued to battle.
MACU put at least two runners on base in each of the last four innings of play, but the Evangels hit into two more double plays, bringing their total to five twin killings rapped into for the day, and the Evangels managed only one run in the seventh inning, as they fell in the game 6-2.
Dany Paradis-Giroux (1-0) earned the win, battling through four innings and allowing only one earned run on two hits with three walks and three strikeouts. MACU starting pitcher Noel Diaz (0-1) allowed four earned runs on four hits, one walk, and three strikeouts in three innings in the loss.
The teams will wrap up their three game series on Saturday with a single, 9-inning game at Noon.
