vcboy2000 Posted June 3, 2007 Share Posted June 3, 2007 Golden Eagles' season is over Link by: JOHN E. HOOVER World Sports Writer 6/3/2007 A six-run seventh helps Shockers eliminate ORU. WICHITA -- Maybe Gene Stephenson saw a little bit of himself during his postgame handshake with ORU coach Rob Walton. Maybe that's why he embraced Walton and offered some extended words of encouragement. "I just told him I have the greatest respect in the world for them and I wish him well," Stephenson said after his top-seeded Wichita State ballclub ended ORU's season with an 11-4 victory Saturday in an elimination game at the Wichita Regional. "You know, he's a good man, and they have a great program." Thirty years after he built the Shockers into a college baseball dynasty, Stephenson doesn't hide his admiration for a young coach like Walton. After all, Walton's Golden Eagles had beaten Stephenson's Shockers four times in a row, including twice this season. But Saturday before an Eck Stadium crowd of 4,326, a day after falling flat in a 4-3 loss to second-seeded Arizona, ORU struck out 12 times and couldn't string together timely hits to keep up with the hot-hitting Shockers, who compiled 16 hits, including six during a six-run seventh inning. No. 15-ranked Wichita State (50-20) advances to a 1 p.m. elimination game Sunday with New Orleans. The winner of that game continues play at 7 p.m. against Arizona. ORU ends its season at 40-17. The Golden Eagles are 0-2 in a regional for the first time since 2003 -- the year before Walton was promoted from pitching coach. "The best team doesn't always win the tournament," Walton said. "It's who plays well and who gets hot at the right time. This is the first time we've went cold in four years at a regional. We didn't do anything well. We didn't play defense well, we didn't play well offensively and we didn't pitch. We have to play well in all three phases to win." This one started with pitching. Neither freshman Jerry Sullivan (2-0 and unscored upon against Wichita State this year), co-ace Jeremy Hefner (four earned runs allowed his previous six starts, but six earned runs given up to WSU) or closer Erik Crichton (unable to stop Hefner's six-run hemorrhage in the seventh inning) were effective. Walton said Friday he would start Hefner, but that was before the Shockers lost to New Orleans late Friday night. Instead, he turned to Sullivan. "He'd had success," Walton said. "If he was cruising and going good like he did the first two times against Wichita, then we had a chance to throw Hefner the next game. If he struggled a little bit, I wasn't going to wait too long to go to Hef." ORU trailed 2-0 when Hefner came in during the second inning. After the Golden Eagles tied it at 2-2 in the bottom of the second on RBI singles by David Genao and Adam Younger, Hefner stabilized things for the next five innings. Wichita State took a 3-2 lead with an RBI single by Tyler Weber in the sixth, but for the second game in a row, it was the seventh inning that unraveled ORU. On Friday, Arizona scored a run in the seventh inning off Crichton after a rain delay; on Saturday the Shockers batted around off Hefner (9-2) and Crichton to take a 9-2 lead. Meanwhile, Wichita State starter Rob Musgrave (10-2) was cruising. He struck out nine and, from the second inning to the eighth, didn't allow an ORU runner to reach third base. "I watched the game a little bit yesterday," Musgrave said. "I noticed they were swinging at a lot of off-speed (pitches) in the dirt. I didn't really change my approach. . . . (But) I was able to get them to swing at some pitches that were not necessarily strikes." There was no carryover from Friday's collapse, the Shockers said. "If anything, they'd be a little more motivated for us because they hadn't beat us in a while," Walton said. Said Wichita State's Tyler Weber, "Yeah, we definitely kind of had a chip on our shoulder going back into the game today knowing they'd kind of had our number the last couple times." "The way Wichita is, they're scrappy," said ORU's Chad Rothford. "So we really thought since we're here at their home turf, they'd come out and play like they did." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- John E. Hoover 581-8384 john.hoover@tulsaworld.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrsSmith Posted June 4, 2007 Share Posted June 4, 2007 We had a lot of fun in Wichita. Well maybe not a lot of fun since we lost, but fun anyway. The Broadview was a nice hotel, loved the wireless internet. The weather was picture perfect on Sat. Friday was less than desirable though with the rain. We sat with a lot of the player's parents. That was fun, but I had hoped to visit with my favorite posters on the message board. I saw orumom & orublue from a distance Friday, never got to talk to them. I never saw Old Titan or ttowncount & his lovely wife. Kinda weird. We briefly visited with the Rotz' on Friday, but I didn't see them Sat. I'm looking forward to next year already. I love going to the regionals. I hope next year is close again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tmh8286 Posted June 4, 2007 Share Posted June 4, 2007 Great recap, MrsSmith. Wish I could have been up there with you, but car troubles kept me home. Glad you guys had fun in spite of the disappointment on the field. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
orumom Posted June 4, 2007 Share Posted June 4, 2007 Mrs Smith, Sorry to have missed you. We did see Bogus in the lobby Saturday morning. Friday we saw Rhonda, Michelle Walton, and the Rotz'. We made the trip with the Petersons. You guys did a great job of getting loud at the Saturday game. We heard that 150 tickets were purchased through our ticket office. Our seats were near some very nice Wichita fans but there were 2 guys behind us that even got on their own fans' nerves. Looking forward to next Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ttowncount Posted June 4, 2007 Share Posted June 4, 2007 I never saw ... or ttowncount & his lovely wife. ... I love going to the regionals. I hope next year is close again. We were there (with two other couples) for Saturday's game. Think we must have been sitting to your left ... seemed to be lots of parents, etc. to our right. I did see Mr. Smith standing up at one point ... perhaps the 7th inning stretch. We had our bags packed planning to stay Sat. evening for Sunday's game ... but it wasn't to be this year. As someone else had already mentioned in another post, what a difference a year made. Winning last year raised our expectations even more, I think, and made this year even more disappointing. Great coaches and great players. I know they will be competitive next year, too, and we're looking forward to that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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