March 19, 2004

Box Score

Edinburg, Texas - In a game that went right down to the wire, #27 Oral Roberts (15-3) edged Texas-Pan American (13-13) 1-0 at the Edinburg Baseball Stadium, Friday evening. The Broncs and the Golden Eagles will do battle again tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m. and then wrap the series up on Sunday at 1:00 p.m.

The first serious scoring threat came in the top of the seventh inning. Boomer Welles opened with a single through the left side. A walk by Nate Griffin put two runners on with no outs. Juan Saenz (Jr./Mission, Texas/Mission HS) got Ryan Welborn to hit a fielder's choice to get Welles out at third. Saenz then struck out Matt VanDerBosch and Brian Hanson to get out of the inning.

In the top of the ninth, Welles reached first on an error. Following a fly out, Welborn singled through the right side to move Welles to second. VanDerBosch then singled to the left side of the infield. An attempt to get VanDerBosch out at first, saw the ball go into the outfield. Welles came around to score and Welborn ended up at third. UTPA then got a ground out and a fly out to end the inning. The Broncs went 1-2-3 in the bottom of the ninth to end the game.

Both sides saw solid pitching performances. Dennis Bigley gave up three hits, walked one and struck out seven batters for the complete game victory. He is now 4-0 on the season. The Broncs held Oral Roberts to just six hits and a .188 batting average. The Golden Eagles had been hitting .323 entering the series. Saenz gave up three hits, walked four and struck out eight batters in seven innings. Chad Linder (Fr./Reklaw, Texas/Rusk HS) gave up three hits, one run and struck out two batters in two innings as he fell to 1-1.

"We pitched a very good game tonight." Said head coach Willie Gawlik. "Juan did a great job for us out on the mound. Chad came in and threw a good game as well. Tomorrow is another day and we just have to come out and play hard."