OKLAHOMA CITY – The Mid-America Christian University baseball team opened a busy week of games on Monday afternoon with a weather delayed double-header to open a series against Southwestern Assemblies of God University. The Evangels will play six games over the next six days, and MACU got two stellar pitching performances to start out that stretch.
MACU (12-5, 4-1 SAC) needed only two pitchers to sweep the twin bill from SAGU (7-9, 0-5 SAC), as Keisy Portorreal and Josh Stevenson combined for 21 strikeouts in the two games and MACU won both by scores of 4-0 and 5-1.
Portorreal (4-1) took the ball in game one, and after allowing a leadoff single, he settled in nicely. Portorreal retired the leadoff base runner on the bases, then proceded to strikeout the next five batters he faced, and that set the tone for his afternoon. Portorreal finished the day with 11 strikeouts and he allowed only two hits and one walk in the complete game shutout. Portorreal became the first pitcher at MACU since the Evangels joined the NAIA to throw two shutouts in the same season.
Offensively, MACU cracked the scoreboard in the bottom of the second inning. Logan Gipson singled and Kevin Lentzner walked to start the frame, and Raymond Rodriguez came to the plate to attempt to sacrifice the two into scoring position. Rodriguez, however, drew a walk instead, loading the bases with nobody out, and Axel Poesmans narrowly missed a double, settling instead for a sacrifice fly and an RBI to put MACU on top 1-0. Trey Jackson and Antonio Dorado followed with RBI singles, and after two innings, MACU led 3-0. Jackson added an RBI ground out in the fourth after Rodriguez singled, stole second, and moved to third on an error, padding MACU's lead to 4-0.
Augie Martinez (1-4) took the loss, allowing four earned runs on five hits in five innings with three walks and five strikeouts.
Junior Aracena also had a single in the game, as MACU had five different players record a single in the game to account for the Evangels five hits. Gipson, Lentzner, Rodriguez, and Jackson each scored runs for MACU; and Jackson, Dorado, and Poesmans combined for MACU's four RBIs.
Luis Sanchez got MACU on the board first in game two with a two-out RBI-double to left-center in the bottom of the first frame, but SAGU came back to tie the score in the top of the second inning, and the score remained deadlocked into the bottom of the fourth.
Rodriguez and Aaron Davis singled to start the frame, and Abdiel Quinones sacrificed the runners to second and third with one away. Dorado followed with a single back through the box to plate Rodriguez and the courtesy runner Jackson as MACU grabbed a 3-1 lead. Dorado then stole second and took third as the throw went into center field, and he scored ahead of a double from Aracena with two down to push MACU's advantage to 4-1. MACU would tally again in the sixth, as a wild pitch from SAGU relief pitcher Nick Palmer allowed Dorado to score with two outs in the inning.
Stevenson (2-1) shined in the circle for the Evangels. He tossed his first career complete game and gave up one earned run on four hits and two walks with 10 strikeouts in the victory. Andrew Ruiz (3-2) was tagged with the loss as he gave up four earned runs on 10 hits and a walk with four strikeouts in five innings of work.
Dorado, Gipson, Lentzner, and Rodriguez each had two hits for MACU in the contest, and Dorado added two runs scored and two RBIs. Felix Martinez, Rodriguez, Aracena, and Sanchez each had doubles for the Evangels in the contest as well, as MACU pounded out 12 hits in the game.
The teams are slated to wrap up their series on Tuesday with a 1 p.m. single nine-inning game.
