OSU Baseball: Cowboys Crushed By Oral Roberts

Oklahoma State suffered its third-straight loss Wednesday night as Oral Roberts knocked off the 10th-ranked Cowboys, 15-5, at Allie P. Reynolds Stadium.

A pair of big innings early in the contest sealed OSU's fate as the Cowboys fell to 24-12 with their second loss to the Golden Eagles this season. The win was the sixth in a row for ORU, who improved to 25-10.

“(ORU) is a very good ballclub… they put up two big innings and proved to be difficult to overcome,” said OSU head coach Josh Holliday. “It's a great challenge for us now — you find out what you're made of when you suffer a little bit of adversity and adversity in the eyes of losing. We've lost a few games now and didn't play particularly well tonight. But we see what we're made of now, and we have a chance as a group to make a statement, to bounce back and play better.

“We'll come together and repair some little things in practice and get ready to compete this weekend.”

OSU jumped on the visitors early when in the top of the first inning, Dustin Williams crushed his team-leading fifth home run of the season, a three-run blast over the wall in center field.

However, the Cowboys' lead would not last long as ORU answered in a big way in its second at bat.

In the top of the second, the Golden Eagles sent 13 batters to the plate and piled up nine runs on seven hits.

The first three runs were credited to OSU starter Garrett Williams, who was pulled after recording just one out and loading the bases following two walks and a single.

Tyler Buffett was called on out of the Cowboy bullpen, but things went from bad to worse as he issued a walk to bring home a run and then a two-RBI single to Matt Whatley to tie the score at 3-3.

The Golden Eagles plated the go-ahead run on a single by Matt Brandy, and a two-out, two-RBI single by Audie Afenir gave the visitors a 6-3 advantage. Up next, Noah Cummings put the exclamation point on the inning with a three-run homer to push the ORU lead to six.

Holliday's ballclub managed a run in the bottom of the second on an RBI single by Donnie Walton, but ORU's offense continued its onslaught in the fourth, tallying six more runs, with the big blow coming on a grand slam by Afenir as the visitors took a 15-4 lead.

The final run of the game came in the seventh when Williams, who was one of three Cowboys with two hits on the night, scored on a throwing error.

Buffett suffered the loss on the mound as he allowed six runs on six hits in just 1/3 of an inning to fall to 3-2 on the season.

OSU returns to Big 12 Conference action this weekend when the Cowboys, who are tied for first place in the league standings, host Baylor at Reynolds Stadium. Friday's opener is scheduled for 7 p.m.