Clutch hitting lifts Wichita State past ORU in 10 innings

Wichita State’s shift from failures in the clutch to near-perfect timely hitting started with an unlikely contributor and ended with one of the Shockers’ most frequent run producers.

No. 9 hitter Travis Young hit the first of his two homers – of the game and of the season – in the sixth inning on Tuesday at Eck Stadium to cut Oral Roberts’ lead from three runs to one run.

After several more clutch hits, Greyson Jenista, the Shockers’ leading hitter, ended it with an RBI single up the middle as WSU won 7-6 in 10 innings. WSU tied it in the eighth inning and again in the ninth after surrendering the lead before winning it with three 10th-inning hits.

“Percentages, if you can stay in it long enough, they’ll come back your way,” WSU coach Todd Butler said. “Offensively, we’ve been swinging the bat well for a month and a half, since (Missouri Valley) Conference started. Our numbers are good in conference – we’ve got a lot of hits and scored a lot of runs.”

The Shockers (23-25) have scored better than seven runs per game in the 20 games since Valley play began on April 7. They weren’t near that pace on Tuesday until the later innings, after many missed opportunities.

As ORU took a 4-1 lead, WSU was often close to breaking through, but the Shockers struggled to score after plating a run within their first two batters. They loaded the bases with one out in the bottom of the second but failed to score after a strikeout and a lineout.

WSU finally dented its deficit with Young’s first home run, a two-run tally that barely cleared the left field fence with help from the wind. It was Young’s first home run since last May 26 against Indiana State in the MVC Tournament.

“That’s all it takes, it takes one swing and it gets you hot,” Jenista said. “That’s what he did tonight and it was huge for us. We wouldn’t be in that ballgame if it wasn’t for him.”

Young’s second home run, again a two-run shot, tied it 5-5 in the eighth, a half-inning after ORU’s Brent Williams homered to put the Golden Eagles ahead by two runs. Young’s second blast was a no-doubter, only needing the breeze to reach the street well beyond the left-field bleachers.

“I’ve got no words for it,” Young said. “I’ve got no idea. … The second one, he threw me a slider and left it up. Oops, I guess. I have no idea. The first one might have been a little wind-aided, but I’ll take it. The second one felt a lot better.”

WSU never had the lead until the 10th because ORU reclaimed it again in the ninth. Its own No. 9 hitter, Sam Grellner, also hit two homers. His second put ORU ahead 6-5, necessitating another Shockers hero, but not the last one.

Alec Bohm reached on an infield hit with one out in the ninth, then scored on Willie Schwanke’s triple toward the right-field corner. The Shockers were unable to bring Schwanke home, though pinch-hitter Noah Croft missed a game-ending homer by a few feet on a fly ball to the warning track.

Jordan Boyer started the bottom of the 10th with a double before Young struck out. Dugas singled and Jenista followed with the game-winner. He swung at the first pitch, an aggressive mentality because if ORU had walked him to load the bases, Bohm, a power hitter, awaited.

“They’d been throwing me off-speed all night and I’d been swinging and missing at it all night,” Jenista said. “I decided, hey, what the heck, we’ll (look for) off-speed and see what happens. I put a good swing on one.”

This story was originally published May 9, 2017 at 10:46 PM with the headline "Clutch hitting lifts Wichita State past ORU in 10 innings."