MOUNTAINEER BASEBALL

HEAD COACH, Aric Thomas
Weekend Preview (3-12-06)

Mountaineers Dominate Weekend

This past weekend, the Eastern Oklahoma State College baseball team dominated three different opponents by a combined score of 40-5.  Saturday, the Mountaineers defeated Marshalltown, IA by a score of 8-0.  On Sunday Eastern first defeated Kirkwood, IA 17-4 in a seven inning run rule and then went on to defeat Carl Albert State College 15-1 also in a seven inning run rule.  The Mountaineers (12-8) have now won four straight games and nine of their last 12.

The pitching staff hand-cuffed opposing hitters all weekend.  Hiarali Garcia (2-1) tossed a complete game shutout on Saturday.  He surrendered just two hits and struck out 16 while walking none.  Michael Lamb (2-2) took the mound first on Sunday and picked up where Garcia left off.  Lamb earned the win by tossing six innings.  He struck out four and did not give up an earned run.  In the final game of the weekend, Blake King (4-0) continued the pitching domination.  While earning his fourth victory of the year, King threw six innings, struck out 11, gave up just 5 hits and didn’t surrender an earned run.

Offensively, the Mountaineers had their best weekend of the year.  As a team, Eastern went 39-93 equaling a .419 batting average.  The hottest hitter of the weekend was centerfielder Justin Mitchell.  Mitchell batted safely in all three games going a combined 5-8 (.625 avg).  He also had two doubles, two sacrifice bunts, a walk, a hit by pitch, scored six runs and drove in four.  Josh Rorex and Blake King hit their first home runs of the year and Carey Crain hit his second.  For the weekend, Crain went 4-8 (.500 avg) scored five runs and drove in a team high six runs.

The Mountaineers next take the field on Tuesday.  Scheduled for a noon start, Eastern will host Richland, TX.  Richland is currently the 2nd ranked team in the country for Division III junior colleges.