College baseball: Jackrabbits fall to Oral Roberts in conference tournament

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FARGO — A day after dominating North Dakota State in its first game of the Summit League Tournament, South Dakota State got dominated on Thursday night. The No. 3 seeded Jackrabbits had six hits in the game and fell to No. 1 seeded Oral Roberts, 15-2.

SDSU will now play a rematch against No. 3 seeded NDSU on Friday night in an elimination game at 6:05 p.m. The winner of that game will have to beat ORU twice on Saturday to win the tournament.

The Golden Eagles, who have lost just one game against Summit League opponents this season, led 5-0 through six innings and the scored 10 runs in the next two innings to fully put the game away.

ORU got the scoring going in the second inning when Jake McMurray hit an RBI single. The Golden Eagles then struck for two more runs in the third. Mac McCroskey hit an RBI triple and later scored on a Holden Breeze ground out to make it 3-0. They then scored two runs in the fifth on an error and a single to make it 5-0.

The first two runs of the seventh for ORU came on wild pitches. Justin Quinn then hit an RBI single and scored on a wild pitch to make it 9-0. Breeze hit a single for the first run in the eighth. Drew Stahl then hit an RBI double and Breeze scored on a wild pitch to make it 12-0. Blaze Brothers hit an RBI single and Matt Hogan hit a two-run double to make it 15-0 heading into the ninth.

SDSU’s scored two runs in the bottom of the ninth. The first run came on a Matthew Werk single and a Jordan Sagedahl single.

Werk was 1-for-1 and Sagedahl was 1-for-4. Nic Nelson was 1-for-2 and Drew Beazley and Jess Bellows were 1-for-3. Reece Anderson was 1-for-5.

Blake Kunz got the start for SDSU and dropped to 1-7 on the season. He pitched four and two-third innings and gave up four runs, three earned, on seven hits with three strikeouts and three walks. Dylan Driessen pitched a third of an inning and gave up one unearned run on three hits with one walk.

Jack Kruger pitched two and two-thirds and gave up 10 runs, six earned, on six hits and four strikeouts and four walks. Dylan Richey pitched the final inning and a third and gave up no runs on one hit with three strikeouts and no walks.