BETHANY, Okla.—Southern Nazarene's six game winning streak came to a halt on Saturday afternoon after Arkansas Tech exploded with a huge offensive day to take both games of the doubleheader in five innings, 24-2 and 10-2.
Game 1:
Southern Nazarene came into Saturday riding a six-game winning streak, but things never clicked for the Crimson Storm in game one as that winning streak was snapped. Arkansas Tech's bats were red-hot from the beginning and they crossed the plate 12 times in just the first inning. The bats continued throughout the game as they converted 17 hits into 24 runs.
SNU threatened in the bottom half of the inning, loading the bases with no outs, but only mustered one run on a Hailie Fellers RBI fielder's choice.
The Golden Suns continued expanding their lead in the following innings, tallying 5 runs in the second, 5 runs in the third, and 2 more runs in the fourth.
SNU worked finally worked a scoreless fifth inning and added a run in the bottom half of the inning after Rachel Weiss's RBI groundout, but that would be the end of the scoring as Arkansas Tech went on to take game one 24-2.
Liana Heshiki and London each tallied a pair of hits including a double in the ballgame.
Game 2:
Game two was much closer throughout the first four innings, but Arkansas Tech exploded for 6 runs in the fifth inning as they again run-ruled the Crimson Storm with a 10-2 victory.
Southern Nazarene mustered just two hits in game two, one of which came in the first inning on Hailie Fellers's RBI single to shortstop. That run pushed the Crimson Storm in front 1-0, but that was SNU's only lead of the game as Arkansas Tech scored one in the second and two in the third to grab the lead.
The Storm got one run back in the third inning on an RBI groundout from Emma Swearingen, but that was the last run the Storm scored on the day. Arkansas Tech notched one more run in the fourth before exploding for 6 runs in the fifth inning to set up the five inning run-rule. All 6 of Tech's runs would come with two-outs as 8 consecutive Golden Suns batters reached base. Each run came via home run as a two-run blast, as well as a grand slam, broke the game wide open. SNU went down 1-2-3 in the bottom half of the inning to end the game.
The Crimson Storm will look to bounce back on the road on Tuesday as they travel to Wichita, Kansas for a non-conference double-header with Newman. SNU holds a 6-3 advantage all-time ove the Jets. First pitch on Tuesday is set for 2:00 p.m. in Wichita.
