Kansas City, MO – After a day off on Sunday, the Mighty Oaks baseball team took on the Trinity Christian Trolls in an elimination game on Monday. During the regular season, Oakland City beat Trinity Christian twice, with the season on the line they fell just short.
It took a little while for both offenses to get going, in the fourth inning Oakland City took the lead. With one out in the inning,
Garrett Causey drew a walk. In the next at-bat,
Treven Madden hit a double to left field and with runners on second and third,
Xander Willis drove in Causey to make it a 1-0 ballgame.
In the bottom half of the fourth, Trinity Christian pieced together some hits and got some help from the Oakland City defense, as the Trolls were able to score five runs on four hits. They scored one more in the fifth, putting the score at 1-6.
Oakland City slowly came back in the game. To lead of the sixth inning,
Noah Baugher got on after an error.
Treven Madden brought him home with a double.
Xander Willis followed with another double. The score was now 3-6 after six innings.
An inning later,
Jared Kirkman hit a triple with two outs. He was able to score on an RBI single from
Noah Baugher. Oakland City kept themselves in the game and slowly came back. In the eighth inning, another Mighty Oaks run was scored when
Xander Willis connected for his third hit of the game, this time it was a solo homerun.
Trinity Christian would add one more run in the eighth inning, putting them up two runs. Down to the last three outs, Oakland City had some work to do.
Aron Busick drew a one out walk. With two outs in the inning,
Noah Baugher got on due to an error by the shortstop. With runners on first and second,
Sam Pinckert doubled down the left field line, allowing Busick to score. The score was now 6-7 and the tying run was on third base. Unfortunately, a fly out ended the game and therefore the season for the Mighty Oaks.
The pitchers for Oakland City were
Christian Burgrabe (L, 3.2 IP, 4 H, 5 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 1 SO),
Milan van der Breggen (1.1 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 0 SO),
Owen Spears (2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 SO) and
Evan Price (1 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 1 SO).
With this loss, the Mighty Oaks ended their 2023 season with a 34-24 record. Thirty-four wins in a single season is a new school record, as it was set at 31 last year.
