Carson Benge Bangs Two Home Runs and Root Delivers on the Mound
(Robert Allen, Pokes Report publisher contributed to this story written by OSU athletic media relations.)
STILLWATER – Fueled by six home runs, Oklahoma State completed a series sweep of Austin Peay with a 12-4 win Sunday at O'Brate Stadium. The win was the fifth in a row for the 12th-ranked Cowboys, who improved to 8-3. APSU is now 2-9 on the season.
Carson Benge and Nolan McLean each homered twice, and Marcus Brown and David Mendham also went deep as the Pokes plated runs in each of the first seven innings. Benge finished 3-for-5 with four RBIs, while McLean drove in three runs.
“Nolan did what he did with his big fly ball home runs, but with Benge I think you could see on Saturday (pitching) and today why we thought he could have had such a big impact on our team last year,” head coach Josh Holliday said of the red-shirt freshman from Yukon that is coming off Tonmy John surgery. He has a chance to be special.”
Bayden Root came out of the bullpen to earn the win and improve to 2-1. The right-hander worked the final 5 2/3 innings, marking his career high, and did not allow a run while striking out a career-best six. He only allowed three hits and no runs.
“That is his best outing for us,” Holliday said of Root. “He was very good on a day where the wind was blowing out a steady 20 miles an hour. He did not let that bother him and showed great maturity and composure.”
APSU scored all of its runs in the first inning against OSU southpaw Brennan Phillips, as the Governors collected five hits in the frame.
The Cowboys answered in the bottom of the inning when Mendham launched a two-run bomb to right-center field to make the score 4-2.
With Phillips settling in after the first, OSU trimmed its deficit to one in the second then took the lead for good on Brown's two-run homer in the third that made the score 5-4.
In the fourth, Benge smoked his first-career homer, a towering blast that carried 466 feet over the batter's eye in center field.
McLean homered in both the sixth and seventh innings, while Benge also added his second round-tripper in the seventh. Both seventh-inning shots were of the two-run variety.
OSU continues its long homestand with a midweek series against Arizona State beginning Tuesday at 6 p.m. The two teams will conclude the series with a game Wednesday at noon