This is always an exciting time of the year for me. College baseball season has begun, and Major League Baseball teams have reported to Spring Training.
Last weekend, the ORU baseball team opened the season with a three-game home stand against Arkansas-Pine Bluff. One of the games was moved from Sunday to Friday, because of the colder weather predicted over the weekend.
I enjoyed the opportunity to broadcast the double-header on Friday, in which the Golden Eagles defeated the Golden Lions, 3-2 and 3-0. With the win in the nightcap, ORU head coach Ryan Folmar earned win number 400 of his career.
I enjoy broadcasting baseball very much and sitting there in the broadcast booth at Chapman Stadium on Friday was, as they say, my happy place. I’m not the regular baseball play-by-play guy, that would be Connor Clark, however, he was with the basketball team in North Dakota over the weekend. I will have a few other opportunities this season to do baseball broadcasts because of conflicts with basketball once again.
On Saturday, the two teams played the final game of the series. I didn’t do the broadcast because I was slated to broadcast the ORU women’s basketball game that day.
In the third game of the series, Ethan Fender, Wailele Kane-Yates, and Cooper Combs all hit three-run homers to propel ORU to the 19-0 win. Fender’s home run was his first in a Golden Eagle uniform.
The Golden Eagles are on the road this weekend with a three-game series at Arizona State.
OU SWEEPS LEHIGH
After a combined 24 runs in two games on Friday, the No. 20/25 Oklahoma Sooners completed an opening-weekend sweep of Lehigh with a 12-1 win in seven innings Saturday afternoon at L. Dale Mitchell Park.
OU won the two games on Friday by the scores of 11-3 and 13-3.
The Sooners will face Minnesota on Friday at 2:00 p.m. in the Round Rock Classic in Texas.
OSU SPLITS WEEKEND IN ARLINGTON
No. 13 Oklahoma State closed out the Shriners Children’s College Showdown at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, Sunday night with a 14-8 loss to Texas.
With the loss, the Cowboys fell to 1-2, while Texas moved to 2-1 and was awarded the tourney title.
Ian Daugherty tied a career high with four RBIs as OSU’s senior catcher went 2-for-5 and smashed his first home run of the season. Colin Brueggemann also had a pair of hits and drove in three runs for the Pokes.
Both teams scored two runs in the first inning, but the Longhorns broke the game open with eight runs in the fifth inning to take a 12-4 lead.
On Saturday, the Cowboys scored a dozen unanswered runs to pick up their first win of 2025 with a 12-3 victory over Louisville at the Showdown in Arlington.
In the first game of the Showdown on Friday, OSU lost to Clemson, 6-5.
The Cowboys will host UT-Arlington in a three-game series beginning Friday at 4:00 p.m. at O’Brate Stadium in Stillwater.
TULSA BEACON RADIO
Tune in to “Tulsa Beacon Weekend” radio show every week, featuring interviews with local and national level guests, talking about everything from politics to family issues. My guests this week will be Jim Lewis, the author of the book The Truth About the Tribulation, and Joya Fadeley from Mend Medical Services The show airs on Saturday at 12:00 p.m. CST on 970am KCFO.