Box Score 1 | Box Score 2 By Kevin Farr
Murray State Sports Information
A six-run first inning pushed Murray State to a dominant opening victory before the Aggies held on at the end of game two for a conference opening baseball sweep of Northern Oklahoma College at Tonkawa on Saturday afternoon.

The Aggies romped to the 10-1 triumph in the first outing and slammed the door on the Bucs for a 9-8 win in the nightcap to improve to 18-4 on the season. They'll finish off the four-game series with NOC-Tonkawa at home on Monday in a 1 p.m. twinbill.

Staff ace Colby Langford twirled four and two-third innings, yielding one run on three hits while striking out eight to pick up the pitching win in game one. Haeven Cichocki was also stellar in tossing two and one-third frames of scoreless and hitless relief.

It didn't take Murray State long to take the lead as Gage Gilchrist walked and raced all the way around on a Garrett Gruell triple to left. Wilbert Espinal plated a couple with a single and Trace Necessary and Brady Benedict each drove in a run as the Aggies sent 11 batters to the plate in the opening stanza.

Gilchrist plated another run with a sacrifice fly in the third with Necessary picking up two more RBI an inning later with a two-out single. Benedict singled and came around on a Clay Jung run-scoring hit in the fifth for the final Murray State run.

Benedict tossed in four hits with Necessary contributing three and Jung two in sparking the Murray State offense.

It was a 1-0 Aggie lead through four innings of a pitcher's duel in game two, but Murray State broke that open with two runs in each of the fifth, sixth, eighth and ninth stanzas. Gruell's RBI in the fifth ignited that run with Necessary chipping in a two-run homer an inning later.

Patrick McCullough's double was the catalyst of a two-run eighth and the Benedict/Gruell connection led to the final two Murray State tallies in the ninth.

The Aggies needed every one of those runs as it turned out as Tonkawa rallied with a 9-4 deficit in scoring four times in the bottom of the ninth before Tyler Zylstra finally managed to slam the door by getting a game-ending lineout with the winning runs on base for the Bucs.

Dylan Hill fired five and one-third stanzas for the pitching win as he allowed four runs on four hits and fanned five.

Benedict had another huge outing with three hits and scored three times. Gruell also tallied three hits, including a pair of doubles, and drove in three. McCullough chipped in two doubles as well.