No. 12, walkoff win for baseball
8/12/2010 8:19:00 AM | Baseball
If this was a countdown of the greatest days of the season, March 7 at Don Sanders Stadium would rank pretty high. The Bearkats won two exciting games, with the second of the day a walk-off hit to beat Creighton sitting at No. 12 on the list of greatest games of the 2009-10 season.
The Kats rallied from a two-run deficit in the bottom of the ninth to beat Creighton 11-10.
In the nightcap the Kats had loaded the bases with two outs and trailing by a run in the bottom of the ninth when SHSU right fielder Greg Olson had a golden opportunity to play the role of the hero.Olson got behind early in the at-bat, but battled back against Bluejays reliever Bobby Lackovic to draw the count full.
With all the runners taking off, Olson hit a liner just over second baseman Alex Staehely's glove and into right-center field as Payton Wisener and Doug Oney crossed home plate for the tying and game-winning runs, respectively.
"In that last at-bat when the count got eventually full, I told myself because I had been here the whole day that it was nothing different. All I had to do was shorten up my swing and put something on the ball," Olson said. "I saw the ball out of his hand and I got as much on it as I could.
"Personally, I've never been able to dogpile or celebrate like that so to do that twice in one day and for me to be the cause of one of them is a great feeling."
The Bearkats trailed by two runs entering the final inning, but third baseman Kevin Miller drew a bases-loaded walk to cut the Bluejays' lead to one run.
Sam Houston State was in command in the early innings. The Bearkats scored seven runs in the first two innings and added another in the fourth to take an 8-7 lead.
Creighton (5-3) left-handed reliever Jack VanLeur came in and nearly shut the door on the SHSU offense.
VanLeur held the Kats to just three hits with no runs over 4 2/3 innings as the Bluejays retook the lead in the fifth inning and added insurance runs in the seventh and eighth.
"We're going to have to make that adjustment against left-handers," head coach Mark Johnson said. "Three of our four games this weekend were against left-handers. It's good that we got to work against those guys because we're going to see (left-handers) in conference. We're just going to have to adjust."
Players Mentioned
Wednesday, May 20
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