McPherson, KS – Tigers had a big day on the ball field as they beat the Wayland Baptist Pioneers for the first time in program history and put themselves a game out from 6
th place in the conference.
The sun was out and the weather was just right for the Tigers to make some history. In what started as what was going to be a long day, the Tigers dueled the Pioneers and battled down to the finish and came away with a victory.
Tigers would call on
Kreighton Rogers to start game one. He would struggle a bit in the 1
st as he would find himself in a bases loaded, no outs jam, but would come away with only a run scored and Tigers avoided an early disaster. Tigers would add 2 runs in the bottom of the 3
rd to give the Tigers a lead and put the pressure on the Pioneers down 2-1. Rogers would end up going 3.0 innings yielding the one run, on 3 hits with 2 walks, fanning 1 batter.
Austin Butenshoen would come in the top of the 4
th inning in a bit of a jam and but once again the Tigers would find a way out of a jam and keep the Pioneers from adding any runs and holding their 2-1 lead. Butenshoen would continue to shine throughout the duration of the game. He would end up being the winning pitcher going 4.0 innings with no runs allowed, on 1 hit, with 3 walks and fanned 5 pioneer batters.
Tiger's offense would put together some good hitting in clutch situations and be able to edge out the pioneers by a slim margin of 2-1.
Christopher Sanchez and
Justin Taylor would come away with both RBI's, while
Koki Matsuda and
Josh Clyden would be come in the clutch in the bottom of the lineup as they would put themselves in scoring position for the top of their lineup and score the 2 runs on the game.
Central Christian Quotes
Head Coach
Stephen McNett:
"It was a great team win today. Our pitching did an outstanding job.
Kreighton Rogers gave us three solid innings and allowing one unearned run. Austin Butenschoen really showed his capabilities going four innings allowing zero runs and striking out five. Wayland is one of the top offensive teams in the country and for our guys to allow only two runs is an outstanding job. We did well playing selfless baseball offensively as well. The two runs were only possible by a sacrifice bunt with led to back-to-back RBI's. Good example of team baseball."
Tigers will head to the rubber match tomorrow at 1:00 PM in what will be an exciting ending to the series.
Go Tigers!
#Ambush
