By Cade Kennedy, Sports Editor
After four straight wins, the Northwestern baseball team lost all three games of their series against Arkansas Tech.
When game one of the series started on Friday afternoon, both teams struggled to score. The Rangers eventually got on the scoreboard in the top of the third inning when Brandon Hold smashed a ball over the right field wall to give Northwestern a 1-0 lead. The Wonder Boys answered in the bottom of the third with two runs of their own two switch the lead in favor of Arkansas Tech, 2-1.
The Northwestern offense continued to heat up in the fourth inning, as the Rangers capitalized off of two Arkansas Tech to take a 4-2 lead. The Rangers did not hold on to the lead for long, as the Wonder Boys scored two runs in the bottom of the sixth to tie the game up at 4-4.
The Rangers responded again in the seventh with a sacrifice fly by Jon Shaffer giving Northwestern a 5-4 lead. The Ranger lead was once again short-lived, as the Wonder Boys struck back with a run of their own to tie the game at 5-5.
Neither team scored in the final two innings of the game, meaning the Rangers and the Wonder Boys were going into extra innings to determine a winner. With two outs and runners on first base and third base in the 11th inning, Brady Prince hit a fly ball towards Colby Jarnigan. Jarnigan dropped the ball, and the Wonder Boys won, 6-5.
In the first of two games on Saturday, the Rangers tried to regroup against Arkansas Tech, but met a similar fate as the night before. The Rangers jumped out to an early 3-0 lead through the first three innings, but the Wonder Boys rallied to tie the game at 3-3 at the end of the fourth. Trevor Saire gave the Rangers the lead with a two-run double in the top of the fifth, but the Wonder Boys responded to put the game at 5-4 in favor of Northwestern. Arkansas Tech eventually pulled away in the ninth with a walk-off single to beat the Rangers, 7-6.
When game two of the doubleheader started, the Rangers immediately found themselves in trouble. The Wonder Boys unleashed a barrage of runs that Northwestern could not stop. By the end of the first, The Rangers found themselves trailing 11-0. Both teams traded runs in the following innings, but the damage was already done as the Wonder Boys won, 13-3, in seven innings.