Baseball sweeps Central Christian in final road series - Oklahoma City University Athletics (2024)

McPHERSON, Kan. - The Oklahoma City baseball team went on the road and picked up a series sweep over Central Christian in the last road series of the regular season.

Oklahoma City 7 - Central Christian 0

With the win, Oklahoma City moves to 27-14 overall and 13-6 in conference play. The loss puts the Tigers at 8-34 with a 2-17 Sooner Athletic Conference record.

Oklahoma City scored all seven runs between the second, third and fourth innings as the Stars caught fire with a four run second highlighted by three RBI-singles from Reese Ratchford, Darian Duhon and Trent Kiraly.

Aiden Alexander supplied the Stars only run in the third with sacrifice fly and in the fourth it was Kiraly coming up another RBI single that scored Hunter Lenochan.

Aiden Van Rensum drove in the final run the Stars got in game one by grounding out to the shortstop which scored Duhon from third.

The Stars were led by prominent pitching with Kade Shatwell making the start. Shatwell dealt five shutout innings allowing one walk and struck out five. Shatwell picked up his fourth scoreless outing on the season while moving to 6-1 with the win.

Trent Kiraly was the only Star to collect multiple base hits after stringing together a 2-for-4 game where he reached with a hit for the fourth straight game while slashing two RBIs.

Eli Hill came up with the games only extra base hit after doubling in a pinch hit spot for Tristan Williams in the top of the seventh inning.

Oklahoma City 5 - Central Christian 0

The win for Oklahoma City moves its record 28-14 overall and 14-6 in conference play. The loss for Central Christian puts the Tigers at 8-35 with a 2-18 record in SAC play.

Reese Ratchford opened up the game with his fourth home run of the year as the game stuck at 1-0 through the next four innings.

In the fifth, the Stars tacked on three more runs behind a groundout RBI by Aiden Van Rensum and a single to third by Barrett Daniel scoring Trent Kiraly.

In the sixth, OCU added one more insurance run on a single by Hunter Lenochan that brought in Aiden Alexander to put it at a 5-0 ball game.

Once again for OCU, the pitching shined as Andrrew Limabaugh struck out a career-high 11 batters in a complete game one hit shutout over the Tigers.

Chad Pike and Barrett Daniel each came up with multiple base hits as Pike went 2-for-3 with his sixth double of the season while scoring his 27th on the year.

Oklahoma City scored its five runs on seven hits while Central failed to get a run across on just one hit while committing three miscues.

Oklahoma City 8 - Central Christian 3

After winning the series on Friday, the Stars came in looking for their third sweep in Sooner Athletic Conference play and fifth sweep overall after taking three games from LSU-Alexandria and and Clarke University back in the first two weeks of the season.

With the win, Oklahoma City improved to 29-14 with a 15-6 SAC record. Central Christian dropped to 8-36 overall with a conference record of 2-19.

Oklahoma City grabbed the lead first for the third straight game as Trent Kiraly singled in the first to bring in Hunter Lenochan before a two-run homer in the third that put OCU up 3-0.

Chad Pike got in on the home run action in the third going back-to-back with Kiraly to push the Stars out to a 4-0 lead.

Central Christian plated its first run of the series in the bottom of the third along with two in the eighth but it wasn't enough to catch to Oklahoma City after the visitors put up two in the sixth and two more in the ninth on Pike's second home run of the game.

Chad Pike and Trent Kiraly finished the day combining for five hits, six RBIs and four runs scored on the day as Kiraly notched his 17th home run of the year as Pike reached up to 14 total this season.

Reese Ratchford, Aiden Alexander and Hunter Lenochan were the Stars to reach base with hit in every game of the series as Ratchford collected multiple hits in the series finale along with a stolen base while Alexander extended his hitting streak to five games while stealing two bags to bring his team-leading total to 16 on the year.

OCU went with four pitchers as Jacob Burkett made the start and went three innings and struck out four. Connor Ferguson came out to relieve Burkett matching his inning and strikeout total while allowing just one hit and no runs. Frankie Danel and Issac Horstman also came out of the bullpen for Oklahoma City combining for three strikeouts as Danel went two innings and Horstman went in the ninth to shut things down.

Oklahoma City will stay on the road for an out-of-conference matchup with Sterling on Tuesday at 2 PM beforereturning home for the final series of the regular season as the Stars take on Wayland Baptist with a doubleheader on Friday night and one nine inning game coming on Saturday at noon.