Cowboys Fall to Eastern in Region II Tournament
JENKS – Connors State will have to fight its way back through the loser’s bracket in the Region II baseball tournament to reach Sunday’s championship game after falling to Eastern State 7-4 Friday afternoon at Hinch Field.
Cowboys (38-19) will play Rose State (25-27) at 3:30 p.m. Saturday in an elimination game. Rose State defeated Arkansas Baptist 19-11 to advance. The winner of the Connors and Rose State game will then play at 7 p.m. Saturday night.
“We had our opportunities and just didn’t get it done,” said Connors interim head coach Bobby Foreman. “But that’s baseball. We scored four runs with two outs and then leave runners on base.
“We could have rolled over and gave up, but we had our chances and that’s all you can ask. I feel confident. We’ll be fine and come back through. We aren’t going to roll over, you can count on that,” said Foreman.
Cowboys missed an opportunity to close on the Mountaineers in the final three innings of play leaving two base runners in the seventh and the bases loaded with two outs in the eighth.
Connors pushed a crossed its first run in the sixth without a base hit, scoring on a ground ball by Brodie Ross, scoring Matt Oberste, who had reached on a mishandled ball by Eastern first baseman Kyle Wallace.
Cowboys made it 7-4 in the eighth scoring three times on three base hits and three walks. Ross, Jacob Barton and Eric Baker each singled, with Tyler Wheeler, Wes Newman Chris Tavares drawing walks. Wheeler, Newman and Ross scored in the inning.
Eastern grabbed an early 1-0 lead in the first off Cowboys’ starter Jake Fisher, who took the loss. Fisher went 6 2/3 innings, scattering five hits and striking out five. Cody McBride came in to finish the game.
Mountaineers increased its lead to 4-0 in the second inning on two base hits and added two more runs in the seventh.
Oberste and Barton each had two hits to lead the Cowboys hitting attack.
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