The one thing that is always a guarantee in NAIA baseball is the game is the old adage, the game is not over until it’s over. The Park University Gilbert baseball team built a six-run lead early and then held on to beat Eastern Oregon 8-7 at Tempe Diablo Stadium.
The Bucs evened their record at 3-3 in the first of this four-game series over the next three days.
The Bucs jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first as Caleb Rozier led the inning off with a triple and after an Eric Baratta walk, with one out Diego Bejarano found some open space down the left field line for a run scoring single to bring home Rozier. Gino Caperon followed with his own single to bring home Baratta.
The Mountaineers would tie the game in the top of the second off Bucs starter Junior Flores. EOU took advantage of some uncharacteristic wildness from Flores as a lead off hit along with a wild pitch and two walks put Flores in a jam. He allowed a two-run single which tied the game, but that would be all he would surrender in his four innings of work. Flores would strike out a career high eight batters in those four innings, allowing only two hits.
The Bucs retook the lead in the bottom half of the inning with a pair of runs themselves as a Caperon picked up his second RBI of the evening with a double and Eric Rojo did his job with a runner at third with less than two outs with a ground out up the middle to short to score the second run.
The Bucs would add on four more in the fourth as Bejarano picked up two more RBI with a single, then was part of a double steal with Will Fleece to score the third run. Evan Vander Valk capped the inning with one final run scoring knock to score Bejarano.
With a six-run lead, pitching took over for the next three innings as both teams went scoreless. Sunny Patel (1-0) threw two scoreless innings to pick up the win in relief, while Adrian Gamez also threw a scoreless seventh.
Eastern Oregon would get to Bucs reliever Caden Griffen in the eighth as they touched him for four runs on four hits and knocked him out of the game after only 2/3 innings of work. With the game now on the line, Josh Leckey, who picked up the save on Tuesday, was brought on to settle things down.
Leckey got the final out of the eighth to get the Bucs out of jam, but he would have his own hiccup in the ninth as he gave up a leadoff single. After striking out the next batter he allowed the runner to advance on a wild pitch. He followed that with another strike out. With two outs EOU made it interesting as another RBI single cut the lead to one. But Leckey struck out the final batter to strike out the side to end the game. Leckey picked up his second save of the season.
Bejarano, Rozier and Caperon each had two hits. Bejarano and Caperon with multi-RBI games. Will Fleece stole three bases in the game.
Both teams now have to quickly get some sleep as these two teams meet tomorrow morning for a double header starting at 10 a.m. at Arizona Athletic Grounds.
Press Release courtesy of Park University Athletics- Preston English
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