Game One Box Score
Game Two Box Score
EDMOND (April 18) – Ryan Schoonover drove in five runs to spark a first-game victory and Central Oklahoma went on to split a Lone Star Conference doubleheader with Eastern New Mexico here Saturday afternoon.
Schoonover's fourth-inning grand slam snapped a 1-1 tie and powered the Bronchos to an 8-4 triumph in the opener before the Greyhounds came back to take the nightcap 4-3 with a run in the top of the ninth inning.
The two teams meet again Sunday for a 1 p.m. twinbill as the battle for a berth in the LSC Tournament continues, with the top six teams from the regular season advancing. ENMU (24-23) stayed fifth in the league standings at 19-19, while Southeastern Oklahoma is sixth at 18-19, Tarleton State seventh at 17-18-1 and UCO (23-25) eighth at 18-20.
“We had a chance to win both games and came up a little short,” UCO coach Wendell Simmons said. “We pitched pretty well in both games and got a big hit from Ryan in the first one, but we struggled at the plate in the second.”
Brian Murphy and Brent Miller teamed up on the mound in the first-game win, with Murphy giving up four hits and one run in going the first three innings before being forced out after taking a line drive off his foot. Miller came in and went the last four innings to pick up the win and stay unbeaten (4-0), allowing three runs on just one hit.
The Greyhounds took a 1-0 lead in the third inning of the opener, but UCO tied it in the bottom of that frame on Luke Yost's RBI double and went ahead to stay in the next inning.
Schoonover had the only hit in the fourth, but it was a huge one -- his third homer of the season that easily cleared the left-center field wall. Casey Bruns walked and both Andrew Foshee and Blake Mitchell were hit by pitch to load the bases and set the stage for Schoonover's big blast that made it 5-1.
ENMU got back in the contest with one run in the fifth and two in the sixth, but UCO put the game away with a three-run outburst in its half of the sixth as Schoonover had a sacrifice fly and Yost a run-scoring single.
The Bronchos took an early 2-0 lead in the second game, getting an RBI single from Brent Hodge in the first and a run-scoring hit from Mitchell in the second. It was tied at 2-2 after five innings before Foshee put UCO on top with an RBI single in the sixth, but the Greyhounds scored once in the seventh and once in the ninth to pull out the win.
Schoonover and Hodge had two hits apiece for the Bronchos.
