Broncos get swept by Oral Roberts University

By Scott Sierzenga
Western Herald

The Western Michigan University (2-10) baseball team got swept in three games against Oral Roberts University this weekend as they struggled to put runs on the board.

The Broncos managed to only score nine runs total in three games against the Golden Eagles (5-6) while allowing 37 runs, which is never a recipe for success. The Broncos lost their games (13-2, 9-2, 15-5) but finally started getting some offensive support from the top of their lineup.

Senior Kyle Galbraith is starting to get hot, hitting leadoff for the Broncos.

Galbraith led off game two of the series with a homerun, his first of the season and the 21st of his career, which puts him seven shy of the all-time school record. The Broncos scored their only two runs of the game in the first inning. Senior Chris Lewis smacked a double a batter later and was driven home by sophomore Jamie Simpson, who finished the game with two hits.

Sophomore Casey Webber saw his first action of the season, after missing the spring trip because of mono.  He threw relief in the final four innings of game two, allowing just four runs. Senior Billy Morrison (0-1) threw the first four innings, allowing five runs.

Sunday saw more of the same from the top of the order, which is a positive for WMU moving forward, as their top three batters each had a hit. Galbraith and Lewis each had two. Freshman Jimmy Martinez hit a two-run homer in the two slot after just recently having been bumped up.

The Brown and Gold started the final game of the series behind from the get-go. Pitcher and hitter Seth Fermanek hit a three-run bomb in the first inning to help out his own cause and give ORU the lead early.  Fermanek finished with two hits, three runs and five RBIs at the plate, while throwing five innings, allowing three earned runs on the mound.

Brad Wehrmeyer showed resilience for the Brown and Gold, hitting a two-run blast in the top of the second inning to cut the lead to 3-2. ORU responded with a two-run shot of their own to make it 5-2 but again the Broncos fought back.

Martinez picked the top of the fifth to hit his two-run homer which cut the lead back to 5-4. Oral Roberts responded with two runs of their own in the bottom of that inning and refused to look back after that scoring runs in the sixth and seventh to make their lead 11-4, and put the Broncos out of reach for the rest of the game, winning it 15-5.

Eric Heckaman (0-2) gave up eight runs in five innings for WMU. Troy Forton gave up one run in two innings of relief work.

The Broncos look to build off the top of their lineup’s success moving ahead to their four-game set against Indiana State University next weekend.

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Posted by heraldstaff on Mar 14 2010. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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