ORU storms back to take down Cowboys in another late-inning comeback

But it did alter its course.

The ball sailed off the Oral Roberts first baseman’s bat, over the right field wall of J.L Johnson Stadium, foreshadowing what was to come two innings later in OSU’s 9-7 loss at ORU on Tuesday night. The Golden Eagles finish 2-0 against the Cowboys this season.

The Cowboys (30-14) held a 5-0 lead midway through the fifth inning. McCroskey’s solo homer trimmed it to four.

Still, OSU starting pitcher and two-way piece Carson Benge held ORU scoreless to end the inning, keeping the damage minimal.

The Golden Eagles (33-11) plated nine unanswered runs through the final four innings. A four-run bottom of the seventh –highlighted by a one-out, threerun home run by ORU shortstop Jake McMurray -- gave the Golden Eagles a 9-5 lead heading into the ninth inning.

“They both have leadership qualities about them and so it’s been a pretty natural transition I think for them where they just recognized that it was their turn to lead,” Darr said. “And a lot of that leading doesn’t even have to be vocal, it can just be how you handle your business every day when you come to the golf course and treating the game the way a pro would treat it; and both of those guys certainly do that.”

Although Chacarra plays professionally now, he played a part in preparing Baumgartner and Neergaard-Petersen. They were housemates in 2022 and continue to be this season, though Chacarra spends more of his time away handling his new responsibilities. Baumgartner and NeergaardPetersen had the chance to learn from his example up close.

Now they’re passing on that experience to the newest member of the Cowboys, freshman John Wild. A strained oblique has kept Wild out of the lineup for most of the spring season, but Baumgartner and NeergaardPetersen have mentored him in practice and beyond.

“It’s been great being able to play with them and spending time with them, not only on the course, but off the course as well, kind of developing a relationship with them and just competing and practicing,” Wild said. “It’s been really great, especially for my development as a freshman so far.”

Although Baumgartner and Neergaard-Petersen were suited for the leadership roles they inherited, there was a learning curve. The Cowboys’ results as a team mirrored that. After a lackluster fall, the team has steadily improved in the spring.

“I’m just trying to lead by example,” NeergaardPetersen said. “(I’m) trying to do the right things all the time. And I’ve certainly done a better job this semester. I did a decent job (in the fall), but I feel like I’ve improved on that.”

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Baumgartner and Neergaard-Petersen aren’t alone in leading the team. Bo Jin spent time in the lineup in 2022 and played well. He isn’t the vocal leader that Baumgartner and Neergaard-Petersen are, but he leads with his play. Jin’s experience, especially in the postseason, is invaluable to the Cowboys.

In 2022, Jin finished third in the Big 12 Championship and played in the NCAA

Regional and Championship tournaments.

Leading up to the Mountaineer Invitational, Jin struggled to find his form. His game came together in West Virgina, where he shot a 7-under 65 on the final day to shoot up the leaderboard and finish second to Baumgartner.

Jin said he enjoyed the dynamic of trying to edge out his teammate for the individual win.

“I think it’s really fun, because if you’re competing individually with a teammate, probably the team’s got to be doing really well,” Jin said. “And, you know, me and Jonas and my other teammates, we have games going on every single day trying to beat each other even at home (in practice).”

Jin was not in the final pairing with Baumgartner, but Jin said he enjoyed putting pressure on him. Jin said the team and Baumgartner’s win dampened the disappointment he would have felt from falling short of the win.

Baumgartner wasn’t paired with Jin, but he was paired with NeergaardPetersen in the early rounds. Baumgartner said playing with and against his teammates in a tournament enhances the experience.

“Probably it’s a little sweeter because we’re practicing every day with each other and competing,” Baumgartner said. “In tournaments it’s just a different feeling because you’re also playing against other players, but you want your own teammates to do good.”

Baumgartner’s and Neergaard-Petersen’s first season as leaders started poorly. In their second event, the Cowboys hit their lowest point, finishing second-to-last in the Cabo Collegiate on March 7. Baumgartner, a junior, finished 51st, and NeergaardPetersen, a fifth-year senior, withdrew after getting a herniated disc in his back. In their last event of the regular season 41 days later, April 18, the Cowboys won the Mountaineer Invitational, and Baumgartner won the individual competition.

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“Jonas has grown tremendously,” Neergaard-Petersen said. “I’ve played a bunch of golf with him, and I’ve just noticed he’s been better; especially he’s been better like moving on from bad shots.

“And one of the things I told him is like, he’s been good enough to win for a while.”

Baumgartner played well, and the team followed his example. Jin and Leo Oyo also finished in the top 10 at the Mountaineer, with Jin finishing second.

Bratton said the win was a result of the effort Baumgartner and the team put in during the time between the Cabo Collegiate and Mountaineer Invitational.

“He’s been a nice leader for us, been focused, been working hard all year, so that was nice, to see him and all the rest of the guys get that pay off because, yeah, he won the tournament, but it was a team effort kind of across the board,” Bratton said.

In the time between Cabo and the Mountaineer, the team’s results improved. The Cowboys finished in the top five of the three tournaments preceding the Mountaineer Invitational.

Each week, a different player found momentum and played well. Neergaard-Petersen finished 20th at the NIT, his first tournament back from injury. He built on that with a seventh-place finish at the Haskins Award Invitational and a 12th-place finish at the Thunderbird Collegiate.

“It’s nice to see the hard work starting to pay off, and you know just getting more confidence,” Neergaard-Petersen said. “I feel like we’re heading the right way.”

Baumgartner’s scores were up and down, but he finished seventh at the NIT and remained a contributor in the

Haskins and the Thunderbird, even if he didn’t play to his expectations.

Senior Hazen Newman and fifth-year senior Oyo followed Baumgartner and Neergaard-Petersen’s example.

Newman placed in the top 20 of the Haskins and the Thunderbird after a poor showing at the NIT. Oyo didn’t finish as high as Newman but contributed to the middle of the Cowboy lineup, finishing 20th, 36th and 41st in the three tour- naments between Cabo and the Mountaineer.

Newman said the results came because the team’s mindset started to change.

“I feel like as a whole our confidence has really grown the last few weeks,” Newman said. “I’d just say all of our confidence looks like it’s growing and that’s been huge for us, because we’ve had the talent, we just didn’t really believe in ourselves fully. So, I think our confidence is why we’ve played so much better these last few weeks.”

Although Baumgartner, Jin and Neergaard-Petersen are new to leading a team, the postseason won’t wait for them to be ready. The Cowboys have had a season full of mixed results and more disappointment than they hoped, but they also collected experience and solid finishes along the way.

Oyo said though the team wants to win as much as possible, they learned a lot from the season and have a chance to continue building.

“As much as we would have liked to have won those events, I feel like we’ve seen more positives than negative out of those results,” Oyo said. “I think the last three tournaments of the year, it’s a good time to use those learning experiences, lessons, and see what we can do.” sports.ed@ocolly.com

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“We had a couple of moments where in the game it kind of sparked us,” ORU coach Ryan Folmar said. “The back half of the game looked really good (for us); we just weren’t good early.”

For OSU, it was the other way around.

It was the same recurring issue plaguing the Cowboys in the latter stages of Tuesday’s ballgame: relief pitching.

Benge exited the mound in the sixth inning, pitching a career-high 5 1/3 innings, surrendering just one run – three once his stat line was finalized -- and striking out nine, another career high.

“I thought we were in a good spot (when I left),” Benge said. “We were hitting well and executing pitches.”

Brian Hendry, Gabe Davis and Bayden Root – three of OSU’s relief arms utilized – surrendering a com- bined six runs after that.

The loss marks the sixth comefrom-behind win for an OSU opponent. Each containing one commonality – a late inning featuring three runs or more.

Of course, smaller intricacies built up to a treacherous bottom of the seventh. From plating just one run in a bases-loaded scenario in the second inning to the slew of inning-ending double plays, a variety of factors led to the demise of OSU’s once seemingly comfortable five-run lead.

Big innings have cost the Cowboys in pivotal moments over the sea- son’s course. In patches, the pitching woes have dwindled, yet come back shortly thereafter. Winning shootouts isn’t a formula for success in baseball. Tuesday’s loss showed that even with the sevengame win streak the Cowboys entered with, that’s still the case.

“Pushing off the emotion of a frustrating loss we’re past that,” OSU coach Josh Holliday said. “The game doesn’t hinge on one moment, it hinges on all elements of the game. We just didn’t play well in the end like we did in the beginning.” sports.ed@ocolly.com

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I wanted to be Princess Leia, who showed me that not all princesses are damsels in distress. I wanted to be a Jedi fighting my way to the center of the battlefield. I told my third grade classmates that if they ever invented X-Wings, I was out of there.

It didn’t help that “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” was in its first season during this time. It quickly became my Saturday morning cartoon. I outright refused a couple of times to go to the football games I was supposed to be cheering for. You couldn’t be in the marching band in first grade, sadly.

I grew up watching “Star Wars,” which became a constant source of fun and happiness. In elementary and middle school, it allowed me not to play princess every day. When the new movies came out, I was in middle school, and it gave me something to focus on during the rough social transition from kid to teenager. In high school, I found my love of journalism and film by writing an article about Star Wars in our school paper, The Trojan Torch. During COVID-19, it was a point of calm in the storm.

Now in college, I’m still writing about it, and as I explore the production, it drives me to want to know more about the backstory of not just “Star

Wars,” but all films. It is the bond I share with my dad. My dad has two girls, so you can imagine he was a little worried about how he would introduce us to his nerdy childhood. Little did he know that his nerdiness was genetic. To this day, we still watch “Star Wars” together. We see every new movie the day it’s released, no matter the circumstances, and we still talk about every little detail because we can’t get enough. It opened the door for my parents to introduce me to their nerdy childhoods and turn me into their arguably nerdiest child. Don’t worry, my sister is a “Star Wars” fan, but she has personality and interests all her own. That is why I love “Star Wars” and May the Fourth Be With You.

“Star Wars” has left a lasting impact on my life and the lives of many others. So if you’re wondering why people love “Star Wars” so much, it could be anything. People love what they love. “Star Wars” fans love a galaxy far far away that tells the epic story of love and loss that spans an entire universe. A classic hero’s journey to that becomes more detailed and layered with every new addition to the lore. There is something for everyone in “Star Wars.” If you want to join in on the fun today, it is easy. All you need to know is one simple phrase, “May the Fourth be with you!” Check out https://www.starwars. com/ for a ton of fun ideas and ways to celebrate.