Daniel Kihle led the Shockers to a victory over the Oral Roberts Golden Eagles Tuesday night. Kihle had four hits on four at bats in the 6-5 win on his first day back from an injury.

It felt good to play in Eck Stadium again.

“It was almost like first day again, playing at home, it felt awesome,” Kihle said.

Coach Todd Butler said that Kihle is probably the best athlete on the team.

“As far as running and the quickness of his bat,” Butler said. “And he’s turning into a real player.”

Kihle led off the night with a single to do his job as the leadoff hitter and help enact Butler’s plan to get out to an early lead.

With Kihle at first, Tanner Dearman hit a single to put runners at the corners with no outs. Next at bat, Garrett Bayliff hit a shot to deep right field to score the two runners.

Bayliff said the team went into the game trying to carry the momentum from their win Sunday against Evansville and use that to get out ahead early.

“If you score first and have the biggest inning you have a good chance to win, and we did both of those tonight,” he said.

Casey Gillaspie brought Bayliff home on a hit to first base and Gillaspie scored on a fielder’s choice with one out to give the Shockers an early 4-0 lead heading to the second.

In the top of the second, a double by Graham McIntyre scored Tyler Boss from second to give ORU their first run of the game to shorten the Shockers lead to 4-1.

Oral Roberts came back again in the top of the third to score three more runs and tie the game at 4.

In the bottom of the fifth Kihle made a big comeback for the Shockers with a two-run double to the left field wall, regaining the WSU lead.

Kihle saw that ORU pitcher Colin Hightower was throwing a lot of sliders and used that to his advantage.

“I was sitting on the slider and he threw it again, and I hit it pretty well out to left center,” he said.

With runners on first and second and no outs in the top of the seventh the Shockers made a big double play. The next at bat ORU’s Tyler Boss nailed a shot through third to shorten the WSU lead to 5-6.

The Shockers were able to hold off ORU for the win.

Butler hopes that Kihle will be able to play all three games Southern Illinois this weekend without having any problems from his injury.