TOPEKA, Kan. – No. 27 Washburn Baseball hit four home runs and held off a hard-charging Broncho team in the ninth for a 7-6 win on Saturday, April 30.
WU (31-15, 26-10 MIAA) clinched another series win with the victory, entering the day with a split series after taking game two, 8-6, on Friday evening. Friday's win was also the 30th of the season for Washburn, marking back-to-back 30-win seasons for the first since 1989-90, when the Ichabods won 30 games to end, a stretch of five straight 30-win campaigns (dating back to 1985).
Dan Gabler (3-1) went five innings in the win, striking out one with two runs allowed on seven hits.
Josh Ramirez threw the sixth in shutout fashion, getting out of a jam after allowing a hit and a walk.
Greg Mason threw the next 2.2 innings, getting the Ichabods to within one out of a win, allowing four runs before
Lance Barkley entered to get the final out and earn his seventh save of the season. Barkley is now in a four-way tie for the single season saves record at Washburn.
David Gauntt (2-for-3) and
Riley Krane (3-for-3) each had two home runs on the day drove in three, accounting for six of WU's seven runs.
Parker Gibson went 2-for-4 on the day, including a third inning single to right field that was his school record 230th career hit. Gibson received a standing ovation at the end of the inning, and now holds the career at-bat and hit records at Washburn.
Scoreless through three, Washburn broke the game open in the fourth with a pair of two-run home runs. With one out in the inning, Gibson singled to right field for his record-breaking hit, and Krane followed by taking a 1-0 pitch over the center field wall for the first WU runs of the day. Carnahan took a pitch hard up the middle in the next at-bat, and Gauntt came through with his 16th home run of the season to put WU ahead, 4-0.
UCO got two back in the fourth, loading the bases with no outs before WU buckled down and allowed just two runs to get out of the inning.
In the fifth, Krane pushed Washburn's lead back to three (5-2) with his seventh home run of the season, taking a 2-1, one-out pitch over the left center wall.
That lead grew back to four (6-2) in the eighth when Gauntt launched a home run into the evergreens beyond the left field wall for his 17th long ball of the season. In the next at-bat, Barkley reached on an error before taking second on a wild pitch.
Later in the inning after a pitching change and
Kasey Clark was hit by a pitch, Clark was caught in a rundown in a pickoff attempt but stayed alive on the basepaths long enough for Barkley to race around from second and score for the seventh run of the day.
UCO scored four runs in the ninth, thanks in part to a three-run home run with one out, before the Ichabods closed on the win with a catch on the warning track in right field.
Washburn hosts Central Missouri in the final three-game series of the regular season next weekend, May 6-8. The Ichabods are three games back of the Mules for the top spot in the MIAA standings.
