RUSSELLVILLE — The Arkansas Tech baseball team got their weekend series at home against Oklahoma Baptist off to a great start on Thursday night with a 13-3 win in eight innings.
The Wonder Boys would score in five of the eight innings played and had multiple runs in three of them, including the final inning where they scored seven runs.
Oklahoma Baptist was the first to score in the game and did so with a home run to lead off the game. The Wonder Boys were able to quickly get that run back, plus one, in their half of the first as they scored a pair of runs on three hits in the inning.
Tyler Sardelli and Cole Dawson started the inning with singles. After both were in scoring position, Simon Murray drove in the first run on a sacrifice fly to center. Christian Olea then followed with a RBI single through the right side.
In the second inning, Oklahoma Baptist regained the lead with two runs. Both runs scored on bases loaded walks with one out. While the Bison were threatening, the damage was limited to just those two runs as Ashton Greenlee came on in relief after that second run-scoring walk and induced an inning-ending double play.
Greenlee would go on to pitch the rest of the game for the Wonder Boys and over the final six innings of work, Greenlee would allow no runs on two hits with no walks and seven strikeouts.
After Greenlee got the Wonder Boys out of the jam in the top of the second, the offense tied the game in the bottom half on a wild pitch. An inning later, Tech went back in front as Murray scored on a ground-ball double play.
Leading 4-3, the Wonder Boys scored twice in the fifth to take a 6-3 lead. The first run that inning scored on a Brendyn Bard groundout while the second was a solo home run by Kirby Jenkins.
That 6-3 score held until the bottom of the eighth when the Wonder Boys scored seven runs to bring the game to its final of 13-3.
In the eighth, the Wonder Boys scored the seven runs on three hits, while also benefiting from three walks, two hit-by-pitches, five wild pitches and a passed ball. The big hit in the inning was a three-run home run by Kolby Webb.
The Wonder Boys and Bison will now conclude their series with a doubleheader on Friday afternoon starting at 1 p.m.
