GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas – The 2016 Washburn baseball season opened with a 12-9 win over East Central on Friday, Feb. 5, before closing the day with a 5-1 win over No. 14 Southern Arkansas.

Washburn (2-0) wraps up opening weekend on Saturday, Feb. 6 with two games.  WU takes on Cameron at 4 p.m. and has a rematch with Southern Arkansas at 7 p.m.
 
Washburn 12, East Central 9
Washburn racked up 18 hits as a team en route to a 12-9 season opening win over East Central.
 
Maustin Otterstatter started the game for WU, tossing three innings with four strikeouts before giving way to Jacob Head (1-0), who earned his first career win with one strikeout and just two hits allowed over three innings.  Dan Gabler and Josh Ramirez threw shutout innings to hold the lead in the seventh and eighth, while Brennan and Ryne Dowling combined to finish the game in the ninth.
 
Wes Jones went 5-for-5 at the plate with four runs and an RBI double to lead the offensive attack.  David Gauntt finished the day 3-for-5 with two RBI while Parker Gibson, Kyle Carnahan, Lance Barkley and Payton Soicher all had two hits.  Carnahan led the team with four RBI and Riley Krane had a three-RBI triple on the afternoon.
 
The Ichabods opened the scoring with an RBI single from Carnahan in the third. Jones led off the inning with a single to right field on a 3-2 pitch, moving to second on Gibson's sacrifice bunt and third when Krane grounded out to first.  Carnahan then took the first pitch he saw into center field to score Jones.
 
ECU answered with four runs in the third, thanks in part to a two-out, bases clearing three-RBI double from Thomas McGarry, but WU regained the lead in the sixth with a four-run inning of its own.
 
Barkley opened the top of the sixth with a single up the middle before swiping second, moving to third when Soicher followed with a single of his own through the right side.  With one out, Soicher stole second to take away the double-play before Zane Mapes hit a sacrifice fly that scored Barkley, making it 4-2.
 
The next pitch in the inning saw Wes Jones double into left to score Soicher, and after Jones moved to third on a wild pitch, Gibson was hit-by-pitch to put runners on the corners with two down.  Trailing by only one after Jones' RBI double, Krane pushed the Ichabods into the lead, 5-4, with his first hit of the season as he found the right-center gap for a triple that scored Jones and Gibson.
 
WU opened the floodgates in the eighth, stretching the lead to 10-4 after seven consecutive Ichabods reached base safely to open the inning as as WU tacked on five more runs.  Mapes doubled to open the inning before Jones reached on a bunt single, Gibson and Krane drew back-to-back walks, leaving bases loaded with no outs and one run already in.  Carnahan was hit by a pitch in the next-at bat before a wild pitch scored Gibson, sending Gauntt up to the plate, where he took a 1-2 pitch up the middle to empty the bases for a two-RBI single.
 
Carnahan wrapped up the Ichabods scoring with a two-run double in the ninth for WU's 18th hit of the game.  The Tigers made things interesting with five runs of their own in the ninth, but WU's early lead was enough.
 
Washburn 5, No. 14 Southern Arkansas 1
Washburn took advantage of strong pitching and had timely hits to complete a perfect first day of the season and claim a win over a regionally-ranked opponent, taking down No. 14 Southern Arkansas, 5-1.

Mike Hefferan (1-0) threw the first five innings and gave up just one run in the win, limiting the Mulerider offense to five hits while striking out five with one walk allowed.  Jaren Kutzke earned the save by throwing the final four innings in shutout fashion, striking out seven batters.

David Gauntt went 1-of-2 with a three-run home run and two walks, while Parker Gibson and Lance Barkley had the other hits for Washburn.

Washburn carried its hot bats from earlier in the day into the first inning, rolling out to a 3-0 lead off David Gauntt's first home run of the season.  Parker Gibson singled up the middle to lead off the game, and with one out Kyle Carnahan drew a walk to put runners on the corners before Gauntt took a 1-1 pitch over the left field fence for his 26th career home run.
 
SAU struck back in its half of the first with a run off two hits, but Hefferan and the Ichabod defense got out of a two-baserunner jam to end the threat.
 
Things stayed quiet until the fourth, when Washburn tacked on another run thanks to a sacrifice fly from Wes Jones.  Payton Soicher worked a leadoff walk before moving to third when Tanner Triggs reached on an error, and with one out, Jones hit a fly ball deep enough to center field to score Soicher and push WU's advantage to three, 5-1.
 
The Ichabods' final run of the night came in the fifth behind Lance Barkley's RBI ground ball.  With one out, Carnahan and Gauntt earned their way on base with back-to-back walks before a failed pickoff attempt on Carnahan at second allowed both runners to move up a base.  With runners on second and third, Barkley hit a 1-2 pitch to the second baseman, who made the out while Carnahan scampered home.
 
That four-run advantage was enough as Hefferan and Kutzke combined to limit the Muleriders the rest of the way.