Baseball Drops GAC Tourney Opener

ENID, Okla. – After taking an early 3-1 lead in its Great American Conference Tournament first round matchup with top-seeded Southern Arkansas, Southeastern was unable to hold off a late inning surge and found itself on the wrong end of a 10-3 final on Saturday afternoon in Enid, Okla.
 
The loss drops the Savage Storm to 17-24 on the season and puts them into an elimination game on Sunday at 12:30 p.m. against the loser of the Ouachita Baptist and Arkansas Tech matchup.
 
Dylan Helms and Brandon Grimsley paced the SE offense with a pair of hits each, while Kaleb Thomas, Corban Taylor, Conner Koepp and Cody Coats added one each.
 
Grimsley, Koepp and Coats each accounted for an RBI in the game.
 
Nick Johnson got the start and was tagged with the loss after tossing 5.1 innings and allowing four runs on six hits with one strikeout.
 
Brady Colbert came in for 1.2 innings of work in relief and was touched up for five runs on six hits with one strikeout.
 
Cody Luman would come on and allow a run on a hit in two-thirds of an inning, while Logan Terwilliger faced the final batter for the Storm pitching staff, earning a strikeout.
 
SAU took an early 1-0 lead with a run in the bottom of the first, and after a pair of quiet innings for both teams the Storm found an answer in the top of the fourth.
 
Grimsley and Taylor posted back-to-back singles to open the inning and moved into scoring position on a Jacob Soisson sac bunt.
 
Grimsley would then come home on an RBI single by Koepp and one batter later Coats would give SE the 2-1 lead with a single that would score Taylor.
 
A Grimsley double in the fifth would score Helms and stretch the advantage to 3-1.
 
The Storm hit a snag in the sixth, however, as the Muleriders picked up three runs to steal the lead back at 4-3.
 
SE did not respond in the top of the seventh and in the bottom half SAU proceeded to add five runs thanks to an error and five hits to mount a 9-3 lead.
 
The Muleriders would add another run in the bottom of the eighth to fashion the final of 10-3.