Lubbock Christian Chaps Baseball Upsets No. 2 Oklahoma City to reach Tournament Final

No.24 Lubbock Christian University faces No.8 Oklahoma Baptist University in the championship game of the Sooner Athletic Conference Baseball Tournament Saturday at 1 p.m. from Bison Field.

Oklahoma City University and Oklahoma Baptist University are co-hosting the eight-team tournament, which involves a pair of four-team pools.  Each team played three pool play games and the pool winners advanced to play in the tournament championship game.  LCU won the pool hosted by Oklahoma City and OBU won the pool they hosted.

LCU has won their last five games and they went 3-0 in pool play after a 15-2 win over Northwestern Oklahoma State on Wednesday, a thrilling12-11 win in 10 innings over Southern Nazarene on Thursday and a 6-5 upset over No.2 Oklahoma City University Friday.  The Chaps, seeded fourth in the tournament, have a 33-19 overall record and they are trying to mark the second consecutive season the fourth-seed has won the SAC Tournament.  The Chaps enter Saturday ranked sixth in the NAIA in batting (.347), eighth in hits per game (11.1) and 10^th in slugging (.505).  Richard Bohlken leads the LCU offense batting .423 and ranking fourth in the NAIA in doubles (22), fifth in total bases per game (2.8) and is eighth in slugging (.762).  He currently is tied for second all-time in program history in home runs with 59 career homers.  His career numbers include 205 runs-batted-in (eighth in program history), 54 doubles (ninth in program history) and 14 triples (sixth in program history).

Oklahoma Baptist also completed their pool with a 3-0 record.  They had wins over St. Gregorys (8-4), USAO (16-10) and Rogers State (7-2).  OBU, 45-12 overall, has won four straight games.    The Bison lead the NAIA in strikeouts with 526 and they are third in runs scored with 475.

The Chaps went 1-2 against OBU in the regular season in a SAC series played in Shawnee, Okla.  The final game came down to a walk-off win for the Bison, as LCU lost a ninth inning lead. The winning team receives an automatic berth to the NAIA National Championship Opening Round.