OKLAHOMA CITY - With their seeding in the upcoming Sooner Athletic Conference tournament secured before they took the field on Saturday afternoon, the Mid-America Christian University baseball team battled the Oklahoma Panhandle State University Aggies in the season finale. The wind was blowing out at Aggie Field, and when the day was over, the Evangels had tied a program record with five home runs in a single game.
Eight home runs were hit in total, with Diego Pichardo hitting a pair of round trippers, and OPSU (20-25, 11-16 SAC) rallied to beat MACU (18-24, 12-14 SAC) 13-9. MACU hit five home runs, tying a program single-game record which has been done three times before. The last time the Evangels had hit five homers in a game came in the 2016 SAC tournament against Southwestern Christian University on May 6, 2016 at USAO in Chickasha, Oklahoma.
MACU opened the scoring in the top of the second inning when Luis Sanchez blasted the first pitch of the inning for a solo homer to right field. In the third, MACU stretched their lead to 6-0. Pichardo followed a lead-off walk with his first home run of the day, and later in the inning, Kevin Lentzner knocked in a run with a groundout and Austin Cooper laced a two run wingle to center field to cap the 5-run inning.
OPSU answered with five runs in the bottom of the third, but MACU starter Noel Diaz managed to get out of the inning with the 6-5 lead intact.
Pichardo led off the fourth frame with his second homer of the game - his 11th of the season - and Yan Ely Adames followed with a solo homer as the Evangels went back-to-back to open the lead to 8-5. After OPSU took the lead in the sixth frame, Leo Bejaran capped the scoring by leading off the eighth frame with his first career home run to provide the final margin of 13-9 Aggies.
Tyler Bryant (2-2) earned the win for OPSU, as he threw one inning in a parade of Aggies' pitchers. OPSU used seven hurlers in the game, and Bryant threw the sixth frame with one strikeout. Pedro Reyes (2-5) was tagged for four runs, three earned, on six hit and two walks in two innings, and he struck out three.
Pichardo was 2-for-4 with the two home runs and three RBIs, and Adames singled and homered in the game as well. Raymond Rodriguez walked three times, Bejaran scored twice, and Cooper had two RBIs.
MACU and OPSU will end up in the same bracket in the SAC tournament. The Evangels are the sixth seed, and the Aggies are seeded seventh, and they will play their SAC tournament games at Oklahoma City University. The NAIA #9 Stars (43-11, 22-5 SAC) are the second seed after finishing as conference runners-up to the NAIA #8 University of Science & Arts of Oklahoma (40-10, 24-3 SAC). The #3 seed - and MACU's first round opponent in the Championship - is NAIA #14 Texas Wesleyan University (41-12, 20-7 SAC). The tournament will begin on May 3, and game times are still to be announced.
