THE RUNDOWN
In a night dominated by pitching, Grant Jay played hero for DBU (9-5) with a go-ahead home run in the seventh to push the Patriots ahead of Oral Roberts (9-5), 2-1. Patriot starter Braxton Bragg threw five innings of one-run baseball and registered eight strikeouts.
 
Bragg found himself in a hole early. After punching out three straight batters to start the second inning, he gave up a double to Holden Breeze and a walk to Max Lucas of the Goden Eagles.
 
Following a line out by the catcher, Jacob Godman, senior Blaze Brothers drove in Breeze with a double to right field to put ORU up, 1-0.
 
Oral Roberts starting pitcher Jakob Hall prevented offensive production from DBU, and Bragg followed suit as zeros lit up the scoreboard for the next four full innings. Both starters finished the night with eight strikeouts and only one walk.
 
Miguel Santos walked to begin the home half of the seventh, and Luke Heefner whiffed at strike three in the next plate appearance.
 
With one gone and a man on first, Grant Jay crushed a moonshot over the Horner Ballpark left-center field wall for two runs and thereby the lead for the Patriots.
 
Just one run ahead of the Golden Eagles, Brady Rose and Kyle Amendt took control of the game, recording their last eight outs all via the strikeout.
 
Rose posted five punch-outs on Friday night and earned the win while Amendt struck out all three batters he faced and picked up his second save of the year.
 
THREE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW
- DBU improves to 2-3 in games decided by one run.
- Kodie Kolden's eighth inning stolen base gives DBU five straight games with at least one.
- The Patriot have hit a home run in back-to-back games for the first time since a three-contest stretch on February 18-21.
 
INSIDE THE NUMBERS
2 - Both squads walked two or fewer batters.
3 - Nathan Humphreys hit three singles in four at-bats.
18 - DBU pitchers combined for 18 strikeouts, tying their season high.
 
GRANT JAY ON HIS GO-AHEAD HOME RUN
"In the last AB, I was really focusing on getting [Jakob Hall] up in the zone and hammering him. I was seeing him well, so I was just trusting myself there to trust my abilities to react to that ball."
 
UP NEXT
Game two between DBU and Oral Roberts will be played tomorrow at 2:00 p.m.
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