ALVA, Okla.—The Truman Baseball team opened the 2020 campaign with a win over Northwest Oklahoma State 12-7. Connor McKenna went five innings for the Bulldogs and picked up the win. He threw 81 pitches with five strikeouts and allowed seven hits and three earned runs. Grant French took the loss for the Rangers.
Truman got on the board quickly with three runs in the first inning. With one out Reid Wilson singled through the right side. Holden Missey followed with a double to move Wilson to third. With two runners in scoring position, Steven Bradbury was hit by a pitch to load the bases for Dakota Spicer. Spicer walked to bring Wilson home for the first run. Adam Stolley came to the plate next, and hit a sacrifice fly to bring Missey home for the second run. Spicer stayed at first but Bradbury advanced to third to put runners at the corners. The next batter was Will Fromm, who singled through the left side to bring home Bradbury and advance Spicer to second. Jake Schneider singled to right to load the bases a second time, but the Rangers got the last out of the inning to limit the Bulldog's damage to just three runs.
Kelly led the top of the second off with a double. He later advanced to third on a wild pitch. After the second out of the inning, another wild pitch brought Kelly in to make it 4-0. Bradbury walked in his second at bat to keep the inning going. The hosts made another pitching change, but another wild pitch advanced Bradbury to second. Spicer came up to the plate for his second at bat, and reached base again with an RBI single that scored Bradbury. Spicer stole second but Stolley was unable to bring him in; hitting a flyout to end the inning to give Truman a 5-0 lead after an inning and a half.
The small ball kept going in the third inning for the Bulldogs as Schneider doubled to lead off the inning. Hamm singled to advance Schneider to third. Kelly flew out to center to bring Schneider in and make it 6-0 Truman. Through the first three frames, Truman allowed just three hits and no runs.
After a scoreless fourth inning, the hosts had a big fifth inning. With one out, a single and a walk set the table for a two RBI double by Brock Randels. Next Randels advanced to third on what looked like a routine infield groundout by Jake Darrow, but an error allowed Randels to come around and score on the errant throw while Darrow advanced to second. Suddenly, the Rangers had halved the Bulldog lead at 6-3 and were not done. McKenna got the second out of the inning on a strikeout but an RBI single by Parker Base brought Darrow in to make it 6-4.
Truman got one back in the top of the sixth as Kelly opened with a leadoff walk. He advanced to second on a wild pitch, then with Missey on first after a walk Truman executed the double steal. A throwing error allowed Kelly to score from third.
With the game 7-4 going into the top of the seventh, Truman blew the game open. With one out, Schneider got his third hit of the day with a single up the middle, followed by a double from Hamm to move two runners into scoring position. Kelly walked to load the bases for Wilson. A wild pitch brought Schneider home, then in the same at bat a pass ball brought Hamm in. Wilson flew out, but Kelly scored on the sac fly. Kelly advanced twice after starting Wilson's at bat at first. Missey blasted a solo homerun for the first Truman dinger of the season to make it 11-4 Bulldogs.
After the seventh inning stretch, Darrow got on again with a single to left. Bryce Donovan then homered to right to make it 11-6. In the eighth another run made it 11-7, but Truman got that run back in the top of the ninth when Wilson singled up the middle to score Kelly.
Truman will be back in action tomorrow as they take on Washburn at noon.
