Under strange circumstances, SAU claims another GAC title

Muleriders sweep Boll Weevils over the weekend

SAU Sports Information

With the rain-soaked spring endured by all in the Great American Conference, the 2015 regular season baseball crown would be given to the team with the highest winning percentage in GAC play and not necessarily to the team with the most wins.

With that as a reality, the Southern Arkansas baseball team needed to sweep a doubleheader against Arkansas-Monticello on Sunday afternoon and also needed Harding and Ouachita Baptist to both lose the final game of their series in order for SAU to out-right collect their third GAC Regular Season Championship in the four-year history of the league.

All of those scenarios played out on Sunday and as a result, the Muleriders (35-14, 20-10 GAC) are once again regular season champions in the GAC and will enter the upcoming tournament in Enid, Okla. as the No. 1-seed, taking on No.6-seed Southeastern Oklahoma at noon on Saturday, May 2.

In the first game on Sunday, the Muleriders got a quality start from left-hander Colton Strother as he pitched seven complete innings, scattering five hits, allowing one run, walking one, and striking out five.

That one run off of Strother came in the second inning when the Boll Weevils’ (17-20, 12-16 GAC) Nick Cerda dropped a single to left field to score Corey Wood, who led off the inning with a single to right field. The Muleriders would get that run back for Strother in the bottom half of the inning, however, to knot the game at one-all as Chris Quinn singled through the right side to chase home Carver Rademacher, who doubled to right-centerfield to start the frame.

In the next inning, SAU opened up their lead to 4-1 with three runs on two hits and the benefit of two UAM errors. Picking up RBIs in the inning were Korey Keith, on a double down the left field line, and Rademacher on an infield single to shortstop that scored two after an errant throw by the UAM shortstop.

Strother would remain settled in to the start and rode a streak of nine-straight batters retired into the fifth before giving up a two-out single. Strother would walk the next batter after that single, but escaped the inning without surrendering a run.

In the bottom of the frame, SAU added three more runs to take a 7-1 lead. The lead would grow to 8-1 an inning later on a RBI double to left field by Chase Harvey.

That score would hold until the ninth when UAM rallied for three runs on four hits, but reliever Jared Webb, who pitched a perfect eighth inning, eventually recorded the final out to give SAU an 8-4 win.

Just moments before SAU knocked off UAM in the first game of their Sunday twin-bill, the Henderson State and Ouachita Baptist game went final with HSU beating OBU 8-5, thus setting the stage for the Muleriders to win the GAC regular season out-right with a win over UAM in the nightcap.

That task got off to a great start as the Muleriders scored four runs on four hits along with the benefit of two UAM errors in the second inning to jump out to a 4-0 lead. The damage in the inning came off the bats of Townsend and Harvey as each drove in two runs, Townsend on a single and Harvey on a double.

In the top of the third inning, UAM got on the board with an unearned run to make it a 4-1 game, but another four-spot by SAU in the bottom of the inning put the Muleriders firmly in control of the game.

Two more UAM runs scored in the fourth to make it an 8-3 game, but SAU answered with a run of their own in the bottom half as Quinn scored on a wild pitch to push the score to 9-3. The two teams would trade single runs in the sixth with SAU’s run coming on a monster solo homerun over the advertisements in left-centerfield by Billy Germaine, his 11th.

Down to just three defensive outs from the regular season crown, SAU turned to the bullpen once more bringing on Jace Powers. Powers would get the first two batters with relative ease before issuing a two-out walk to Bronson Gillam. That walk would not come around to hurt as Powers got Cerda to bounce into a fielder’s choice to end the game.

On Saturday, down in the count 1-2 with no one on and two outs in the bottom of the eighth inning, SAU’s Carver Rademacher obliterated an Austin Braddock offering to straight away centerfield for a mammoth solo homerun that put SAU on top 5-4. Rademacher’s solo blast proved to be the game-winner as Travis Johnson slammed the door shut in the ninth to preserve the one-run win.

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