SE Athletics
SEMINOLE, Okla. – Southeastern piled up 39 runs on 30 hits, including 14 home runs, en route to a Sunday twinbill sweep of rival East Central, taking game one 14-2 before closing out the series with a 25-7 win in Seminole, Okla.
Sports presented by Indian Nation Wholesale.
The win lifts the Savage Storm to 21-28 overall on the season and 16-17 in Great American Conference play, securing a berth in the GAC Tournament as the No. 8 seed.
SE came into the day looking to break the team’s single season home run record of 88 which was set in 1999, and did so with room to spare and posting 102 homers on the year heading into the postseason. Southeastern becomes the first conference team to surpass 100 home runs since the 2022 season and is just the third team in GAC history to hit over 100 home runs as a team.
In game one, Olson finished the contest with a 3-for-5 outing as all three of his hits left the park, putting up six RBI and three runs scored.
Chae Keeton finished the opener 4-for-5 with four RBI and four runs scored.
Brady Evans, Wesley Mitchell, Nick Mueller, Austin Thorp, and Alex Showalter each added a hit.
Olson turned in three homers and Keeton posted a pair of longballs and a double. Mueller, Thorp, and Showalter each had a home run.
Thorp finished the game with two RBI, while Showalter and Mueller drove in one each.
Colton Clawson got the start and tossed a complete game in the win, scattering three hits and allowing two runs, one of them earned, while striking out three in eight innings before the run ule.
Keeton put the Storm on the board in the first inning of game one with a two-run home run and Olson made it back-to-back with a solo homer a batter later to take a 3-0 lead right out of the gate.
Keeton added a second home run in the top of the third inning, a solo blast to right center to push the score to 4-0.
Keeton led off the sixth with a double and set the stage for Olson’s second home run of the contest, clearing the wall in left center and pushing the SE advantage to 6-0 midway through the sixth inning.
Mueller tacked on a run with a solo homer in the top of the eighth, and two batters later Thorp joined the longball party with a two-run shot to left to extend the lead to 9-0.
But the Storm big bats were not done as Showalter bashed the third homer in four at bats, soaring over the left field wall and giving the Storm a 10-0 lead.
Keeton added a run on an RBI single which scored Ryan Kirk later int eh inning and Olson completed the trifecta with his third home runs of the day, a three-run shot to center to extend the SE lead to 14-0 midway through the eighth inning.
In the series finale, Evans led the way with a 4-for-5 performance, including a homer and a double, with six RBI and four runs scored.
Mitchell, Keeton, Antonio Crews, Colton Sagely, Jake Miller, and Showalter each logged a pair of hits, while Poole and Thorp had one each.
Keeton turned in a home run and a triple, while Mitchell, Sagely, Miller, and Evans each homered and doubled.
Thorp rounded out the Storm home run hitters.
Miller followed Evans with four RBI, with Mitchell and Showalter right behind at three apiece.
Keeton, Sagely, and Thorp had two RBI each, while Poole and Dollins drove in one each.
Ryan Rauss got the start and tossed four innings in the win, allowing two runs on five hits with seven strikeouts.
Brock Zimmer followed with an inning and struck out two without allowing a hit.
Luke Johnson turned in two-thirds of an inning and was tagged for five runs on four hits before Corbin Lingo came on to finish the inning without allowing a hit in one-third of an inning.
Ryan Farquharson finished the game, allowing two hits while striking out one in an inning of work.
A Mitchell RBI double started the Storm scoring in the top of the first inning in the finale, and two batters later Miller pushed the score to 3-0 with a two-run home run.
Two batters after that Thorp connected on a two-run home run as well, extending the lead to 5-0 midway through the first inning.
The Tigers answered with a pair of runs in the bottom of the first.
Mitchell would kick off the scoring again in the second inning with a sac fly that plated Dollins followed by a two-run homer by Keeton to take an 8-2 lead.
Later in the second, SE brought home runs on a bases loaded walk and a bases loaded hit by pitch before an Evans single drove in a two more runs, stretching the lead to 12-2.
The Storm picked back up in the third, first with a bases loaded walk by Poole, followed by a two-run single from Showalter, an Evans grand slam, a Mitchell solo shot, and finally a Sagely solo homer to push the lead to 21-2 midway through the third inning.
Sagely doubled home a run in the fifth to make the score 22-2, but ECU responded with two-RBI singles and a three-run homer in the bottom of the fifth to cut Southeastern’s lead to 22-7.
In the top of the seventh, Miller drove in a pair of runs on a double, and Crews came home on a wild pitch to take a 25-7 lead which would hold up as the final score.