SAN ANTONIO, Texas – No. 40 Oral Roberts University's baseball team rallied from a 3-0 deficit to defeat No. 19 Louisiana-Lafayette, 6-5, in the UTSA Baseball Classic on Saturday afternoon at Wolff Stadium.

Carlos Luna earned his second save in as many days by allowing one run and striking out a career-high seven batters in four innings of relief to help ORU improve to 3-0 on the young season.

Starter Michael Jarman (1-0) breezed through the first three innings allowing one hit, but ran into trouble in the fourth frame. The Ragin' Cajuns (2-1) put three runs on the board in the bottom half of the fourth to take an early 3-0 lead.

ULL plated their first run when Matt Hicks' sacrifice bunt scored Tyler Benzel after a throwing error by Jarman. Justin Robichaux knocked in the other two runs with a double in the gap to left center.

ULL's starting pitcher Brent Solich (0-1) had a no-hitter going through four innings until Brian Van Kirk belted a double to left center in the first at bat in the fifth. Van Kirk advanced to third on a Solich wild pitch and scored the ORU first run on a single by David Genao.

Kyle Price kept the Golden Eagle rally going with a double down the left field line that scored Genao all the way from first. Price advanced to third on the throw home, but the throw hit Genao and went all the way to the backstop, scoring Price to tie the game at 3-all.

ORU took their first lead of the game in the top of the sixth. Brendan Duffy led off the inning by being hit by Solich. Kelly Minissale then reached on a bunt single and Duffy advanced to third on a ULL throwing error. Ben Petralli plated Duffy on a RBI single to left field and then Van Kirk followed with his second double of the day to score Minissale.

Pitch-hitter Ryan Groth kept the Golden Eagle offensive attack rolling in the sixth by singling to right field to score Petralli increasing the ORU lead to 6-3.

Louisiana-Lafayette knocked Jarman out of the game by putting the first two runners on board in the bottom of the sixth. Jameson Dunn relieved Jarman, but walked Thad Griffin to load the bases with no outs. Luna came in for Dunn and allowed a sacrifice fly as ULL cut into ORU's lead, but ended the Ragin' Cajuns rally by striking out two consecutive batters.

ULL's Hicks made it a 6-5 game with two outs in the bottom of the ninth with a home run over the left field fence. After Scott Hawkins doubled to left center, Luna struck out Chance Harst to end the game.

Jarman struck out three and scattered six hits in five plus innings of work. Three of the four runs scored on the left-handed hurler were earned.

Van Kirk finished 3-for-4 with an RBI and two doubles as the Golden Eagles only left three runners on base. Five different Golden Eagles knocked in a run and ORU recorded a season-high 10 hits.

ORU will round up the UTSA Baseball Classic tomorrow with a match-up against Texas Tech at 2 p.m. Live stats will be available at www.goutsa.com, but will not be on www.ORUGoldenEagles.com.

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