The Basics
Score: Oral Roberts 5 – Omaha 4
Records: ORU (21-10, 7-0), Omaha (11-12, 4-3)
Location: Omaha, Neb. (Tal Anderson Field)
Win: Brooks Fowler (3-1) | Loss: Caleb Riedel (1-4) | Save: Cade Denton (6)
 
OMAHA, Neb. – The Oral Roberts baseball team continued its winning ways in Summit League play Thursday night with a 5-4 victory at Omaha in the series opener from Tal Anderson Field. 

Brooks Fowler earned the win after tossing six innings of two-run baseball to go along with a career-high seven strikeouts. In relief, Cade Denton picked up his League-leading sixth save of the season after striking out three over 1.2 scoreless innings. 

Jonah Cox, the Summit League Peak Performer of the Month, tallied a game-best three hits and plated a run to lead the Golden Eagle offense. Second baseman Drew Stahl joined Cox with a multi-hit performance after going 2-for-4 at the dish. 

ORU struck first in the opening frame as Cox plated Jake McMurray, who reached on a leadoff walk, with an RBI single. Mac McCroskey put the Golden Eagles up 2-0 with a sacrifice fly that scored Justin Quinn, who reached on a single to left. The ensuing batter, Stahl, brought home the third run of the frame with a bloop RBI double down the right-field line. 

A solo homer put the Mavericks on the board in the fourth as they cut the lead to 3-1. 

In the fifth, ORU added to its advantage, 5-1, with a two-run opposite-field homer off the bat of Matt Hogan. The long ball was the Melville, New York, native's League-leading 11th of the season. 

An RBI single from the Mavericks in the bottom half of the frame cut the advantage to 5-2. Omaha continued to chip away as two runs came across to score in the eighth, trimming the lead to 5-4.

With the tying run 90 feet away and the go-ahead run on second in the eighth, Cade Denton ended the Omaha threat with a strikeout of Eduardo Rosario to send the game to the ninth.

After the Golden Eagles were held scoreless in the top half of the ninth, Denton set the Mavericks down in order to seal the win, 5-4. 

Inside the Box Score
- ORU totaled 10 hits in the win.
- Seven different Golden Eagles registered a hit on the night.
- Cox tallied a game-best three hits. 
- Hogan scored a game-high two runs on the night. 
- The redshirt senior's homer was his fourth in Summit League play.
- Quinn swiped his third base of the season in the seventh.
- As a staff, ORU struck out 12 Mavericks.
- Fowler recorded a career-best seven strikeouts en route to his third win of the season.
- Dalton Patten made his 14th appearance out of the bullpen and struck out two in 1.1 innings.
- Denton punched out three batters in 1.2 innings of work to record the save.

Notes
- Thursday's series opener marked the 45th meeting all-time between the two clubs.
- With the win, ORU improved to 34-11 all-time against the Mavericks and has won five straight in the series.
- With the victory, the Golden Eagles are 7-0 in League play for the first time since 2017. 
- Friday's contest marked ORU's 2023 Summit League road opener.
- Cox logged his team-leading 18th multi-hit contest of the season and extended his hit streak to 15 games.
- Holden Breeze stretched his on-base streak to 18 straight games. 
- Jake McMurray has now reached base safely in 14 consecutive games and made his 113th consecutive start.
- Denton's save was the 13th of his career, tying him for ninth all-time in program history.

Up Next
The Golden Eagles will go for the series win against the Mavericks tomorrow at 3 p.m.

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