St. Thomas baseball fell to Oral Roberts 7-4 Friday afternoon at Koch Diamond, extending its losing streak to five games as the Tommies fight for a spot in the Summit League Championship.
Junior pitcher Brayden Olson took the loss, falling to 0-7 on the season, but coach Chris Olean said the outing was more complicated than the final line suggested.
“He hung a couple breaking balls that they hit out,” Olean said. “They had a handful of hits that kind of scraped through some holes that really weren’t hit hard. I think he let it get to him a little bit — when those things happen, you can get frustrated.”
The Golden Eagles came to St. Paul as the conference’s top team at 16-3 in Summit League play, and they looked the part. They jumped out to a 5-0 lead through three innings on the strength of a two-run home run by senior right fielder Will Edmunson in the second and a two-run shot from senior designated hitter Ethan Fender in the third.
Olson settled in after that early trouble, pitching six innings and striking out five batters in total. Olson ranks third in the Summit League with 55 strikeouts.
St. Thomas showed some fight offensively, chasing Oral Roberts sophomore pitcher Easton Teel, who leads the Summit League with a 3.06 ERA. The Tommies rallied for three runs in the third, including a two-RBI double from senior first baseman Joe Roder that scored junior outfielders Easton Fritcher and Tanner Recchio to make it 5-3.
Recchio leads the Summit League in both runs scored (38) and bases stolen (30), and he added an RBI sacrifice fly in the fourth inning to pull St. Thomas within a run of the opposition. However, Golden Eagles senior reliever Jack Hill shut the Tommies down over the final five innings.
Oral Roberts tacked on two more runs in the eighth to close it out 7-4.
Olean said the Tommies didn’t dramatically alter their approach going into the series despite facing the conference’s top team.
“Generally speaking, the way we’ve played this year, it’s more about us,” Olean said. “Certainly Oral’s a good team, and they can beat you if you play well, but at the end of the day, we control our own destiny most of the time.”
Olean pointed to struggles with situational hitting and giving up free bases as the difference-makers in the loss.
“That ability to two-out hit, and then limit the free bases, has really been our Achilles all year,” Olean said. “If we take care of that, we’re usually in every game we play.”
St. Thomas sits fifth in the Summit League at 6-12, just one spot outside the four-team championship tournament approaching on May 20. The Tommies need at least one win in their three-game series this weekend against the Golden Eagles to keep their tournament hopes alive.
“We know we’re running out of time,” Olean said. “We gotta at least take one from these guys and make sure we have an opportunity here in the last couple weekends.”
The Tommies will play Oral Roberts for the second game in the series on Koch Diamond on May 2 at 1 p.m.
Reagan Boschulte can be reached at bosc3829@stthomas.edu.
