TMU Baseball scored double-digit runs for the first time this season, but it still wasn't enough in a 12-16 defeat to Oklahoma Panhandle State University (Okla.), the Mustangs' first loss of 2022.
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The Aggies put up a five-spot on the Mustangs in the bottom of the first before adding another run in the bottom of the third.
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Master's finally got on the scoreboard in the top of the fifth, when
Davis Beavers scored on a wild pitch, kickstarting a TMU offense that scored in each of the final five innings.
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An
Austin Young RBI-single scored
Will Batz in the top of the sixth, before Young later crossed home plate on a wild pitch. Beavers' sacrifice fly then got the Mustangs within two runs at 6-4.
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OPSU responded with its second five-run inning of the game to extend its lead to seven runs, 11-4.
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Miles Henderson's base hit up the middle got one back for TMU in the top of the seventh, only for the Aggies to add two more themselves in the bottom half of the inning.
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After a
Cason Brownell RBI-single in the top of the eighth, pinch hitter
Kobe Katayama recorded his first collegiate hit and RBIs with a two-run triple. He then scored the first run of his young Mustang career on Batz' RBI-single to right field.
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With TMU trailing by seven entering the ninth, after OPSU scored three in the eighth,
Corny Miller's RBI-groundout put Master's into double figures for the first time this season. Katayama then struck again with a two-RBI double down the right-field line.
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That was all the Mustang offense was able to muster, though, as TMU's unbeaten start to the season came to an end.
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Brownell recorded multiple hits for the second-straight game, continuing an impressive tournament thus far for the sophomore second baseman, who has five hits in his first two games in Arizona.
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Master's (4-1 overall) concludes its participation at the Coach Calderone Invitational tomorrow, when TMU takes on Embry-Riddle (Ariz.) at 9:30 a.m. PST/10:30 a.m. MST and Taylor University at 1 p.m. PST/2 p.m. MST.
