Baseball team succeeds in Dallas

By Michael Steward, Assistant Sports Editor

   The Oklahoma Baptist Men’s Baseball team traveled to Dallas, Texas on Wednesday, Feb. 15th, to face-off with Texas foes, Dallas Christian College.

   The game, to be put simply, was a field day for the Bison, who posted a season-high 28 runs in the 28-6 victory over the Crusaders.

    The Bison opened the game with seven runs in the first inning, highlighted by a homerun from Josh Timms.

    The rest of the game was all OBU from there, as the Bison coasted to the finish line behind a combined total of seven hits, three home-runs, and 10 RBI from Timms and teammate, Joe Moran.

    Kevin Olmeda, contributed three hits to the contest, as well as two hits each from Dustyn Cook, Zane Gelphman, Hunter Heath and Kyle Abblitt.

    The defending NCCAA National Champion posted runs in all but two innings, proving to be too much offensively for the opponent.

    On defense, the Bison held the Crusaders scoreless in all except two innings, and only gave up six runs total.

    Blake Whitehead, owned the mound for the majority of the night, pitching for the opening five innings, while AJ Merkel and Brad Adams pitched an inning a piece to help seal the victory.

    Heading into the game, the Bison game plan was quite simple, “play with the right mentality and play our game,” Austin Cooper said.

    “We always talk about winning the first inning and we executed that perfectly on Wednesday,” he said.

    “On the other side of the ball, Blake went out on the mound and had a really quick inning that set the tone for us defensively.”

    The hot start swinging the bats and pitching the ball put the Bison in control of the game.

     Coming off a NCCAA National Championship season, the Bison are looking to have another dominant season.

     “I think our biggest strength is our team’s resiliency,” Bob English said.

     “As long as we play the way we know how; we will do really well this season.”

    Now 4-2 on the season, the Bison hit the road for a three-game weekend in Arkadelphia, AR, beginning with a matchup against Ouachita Baptist University.