By Logan Jones
Assist. Sports Editor
In their second to last series of the 2019 season, Northwestern took on the Savage Storm of Southeastern Oklahoma State last weekend. Despite putting up a good fight, the Rangers lost all three games of the series.
Game one was a classic pitchers duel. Northwestern starter Kaleb Honea, despite getting the loss, had a great outing, striking out five through 6.2 innings. The Savage Storm struck first by plating two runs in the top of the second inning. The red and black answered back two innings later thanks to a leadoff triple from Johnnuelle Ponce who came across to score on an RBI single by Luis Mendoza.
The Rangers would continue to threaten throughout the game, but they just could not get that big hit to drive in any runs.
In the top of the seventh inning, Southeastern scored again, giving the Savage Storm a 3-1 lead late in the contest. Northwestern would, again, have runners in scoring position in the seventh and eighth innings, but they were ultimately stranded as the Ranger bats just could not get the job done.
After the ninth, the Rangers lost by score of 3-1.
In game one of the double-header on Sunday, the bats from both teams came alive. The Savage Storm scored three in the top of the first, but Northwestern answered quickly, scoring one of their own in the bottom of the inning.
Both teams continued to hit and put up runs. Southeastern scored two more runs in the fourth, extending their lead to 5-1. However, the determined Rangers never backed down. In the bottom of the fourth, the red and black tacked on another run when Justin Bundy was able to score on a Mendoza single. Later in the fifth, catcher Bryce Donavan doubled with the bases loaded. Dash Johnson was able to score but that is all the Rangers would get as Luis Cintron was tagged out at the plate.
After Southeastern would again extend their lead to 9-3 in the sixth, Ponce was able to score after Donavan crushed his second RBI double of the day, making it 9-4. In the top of the ninth, the Savage Storm added one more run, giving them a rather comfortable six-run lead. But the Rangers still had some fight left in them.
The rallied to bring across three runs in the bottom of the ninth, but came up three runs short, losing 10-7.
Even in the final game of the series, the SOSU bats still had some pop. The Savage Storm scored three in the top of the first, and one in the fourth. Northwestern cut the lead in half after solo blasts from Colton Whitehouse in the third and Ponce in the bottom of the fourth.
The Southeastern put up back-to-back two run innings in the fifth and sixth before the Rangers added their final run of the ballgame in the bottom of the seventh.
Marques Paige reached on a double to left field and moved to third two batters later.
Jake Darrow then stepped in and drove Paige home for the final 8-3 output.