Baseball Loses NSU Series

March 22, 2008

TAHLEQUAH, Okla. – Southwestern Oklahoma State University struggled to find any consistent rhythm offensively and lost three of four games to Northeastern State University in a baseball series completed Sunday in Tahlequah.

The Bulldogs lone win was a 17-8 victory in the second game of Saturday’s doubleheader. SWOSU lost the other games by scores of 14-8, 4-2 and 12-2.  The Bulldogs are now 8-20 on the year and remain wedged in 11th place in the Lone Star Conference standings with a 6-17 mark.

SWOSU will next play at home Thursday when it begins a four-game series with Southeastern Oklahoma State University.

In Saturday’s win, SWOSU scored 15 unanswered runs after spotting Northeastern at 5-2 lead through four innings.

Dakota Streber, SWOSU’s top hitter all season long, finished the game with three hits in four at bats, including driving in two runs and scoring twice. Streber is batting .485 on the year, 145 points better than the team’s second-place hitter Dakota James.

Other stars in the game were Nelson Espinal who led off with a solo home run then added an RBI single in the sixth. Blain Perkins and Bow Buckner each had a pair of hits as SWOSU knocked around seven NSU pitchers with 14 hits on the day.

Nathen Perez got the win in relief, pitching the final four and two-thirds innings. He allowed eight hits, five runs, four of which were earned, while improving his record to 2-2 on the year.

In the 14-8 loss on Friday, SWOSU got behind 9-3 after three innings of play and chased NSU the rest of the way. SWOSU trimmed NSU’s lead to 9-6 in the fourth but the RiverHawks put the game out of reach with four runs in the eighth.

Streber went four-for-four in the game while Moose Wathen had three hits in as many at bats.

Adam Phillips (0-4) took the loss lasting just two and one-third innings before giving way to SWOSU’s bullpen.

In the 4-2 loss Saturday, SWOSU’s Max Grocki (1-3) was again solid on the mound, giving up only seven hits and four runs, three of which were unearned, through eight innings of work. NSU scored two in the eighth thanks to three Bulldog errors to wn the game. Grocki has one of the lowest ERA’s (3.19) in the LSC through the first two months.

NSU won the series outright with a 12-2 victory on Sunday. The RiverHawks were ahead 7-1 after four innings of play and chased starter and eventual loser Chris Morrison (4-3) by the fifth inning.

SWOSU managed just six hits, four of which came by the combination of Espinal and Kenny Hare.