The Wichita State baseball team shut down the Oral Roberts Golden Eagles 8-0 on Wednesday in a makeup game from February that was canceled due to weather. The win gave the Shockers a boost coming off a tough loss in Tuesday’s game against Oklahoma State. 

The Shockers came out with a shallow—but strong—bullpen that allowed only one hit in the shutout. But the pitchers available did what they needed to do. 

“I was extremely pleased,” said WSU coach Gene Stephenson.

Starting pitcher Garrett Brummet pitched for five innings with five strikeouts and no walks on 63 pitches against 16 at bats. 

Austin Sanders would come in to replace Brummet in the top of the sixth to continue the shutout for two more innings. Zach Beringer and Tobin Mateychick rounded out the pitching onslaught with one inning pitched each to finish the game. 

ORU went through eight pitchers in the night.

After leaving a man stranded on third base in the bottom of the first inning, the Shockers roared back in the bottom of the second. 

Johnny Coy started out the inning by hitting a double to center field. The first score of the night came from a close steal at home plate by Erik Harbutz on a wild pitch by Gavin Glanz. With the bases loaded, Garrett Bayliff nailed a single with two RBI’s to bring the score to 3-0. Bayliff would score three RBI’s in the night.

The Shockers continued their onslaught in the bottom of the third. Tyler Baker started out the inning with a long triple that was inches short of a home run. 

After a walk to Coy, the Golden Eagles brought in pitcher Brad Fisher in an attempt to keep WSU from scoring. ORU was successful in pulling in a double play, but not before Baker made his way home to put another run on the board for the Shockers.

The Golden Eagles managed to finally get their first and only hit for the night on a single by Brad Fisher off of WSU pitcher Garrett Brummett in the fourth inning. 

Stephenson turned to Tanner Kirk at third base for the game and it paid off. Kirk finished with two hits and one RBI.

“He did a really good job,” Stephenson said. “He hit the ball well, he played good defense. He should feel good about himself.”

The win was a confidence builder that the team needed in order to gain momentum going into a weekend series against Southern Illinois. 

“We’re ready for that,” Kirk said. “We need to win these conference games though.”

 The Shockers are tied for first in the Missouri Valley Conference with Missouri State. 

They will play a three-game series against the Southern Illinois Salukis over the weekend in an attempt to get ahead of Missouri State for the lead in the conference.