Allen Community College saw both sides of the coin over the weekend.
One day after the Red Devil bullpen struggled mightily in a pair of losses to Cowley College, Allen was back at it on Sunday against another high-powered foe in Northern Oklahoma College-Enid.
This time, Allen’s bullpen was downright dominant, shutting out Northern Oklahoma over the game’s final five innings.
That allowed the Red Devils to rally with one in the seventh and two in the eight to capture a 7-6 victory.
Sunday’s win snapped a four-game losing streak for Allen, and a 13-game winning streak for Northern Oklahoma.
“It was a good bounceback for us after Saturday,” Red Devil head coach Clint Stoy said, in which Allen dropped decisions of 14-3 and 7-4 to Cowley.
Because of the heavy toll the losses to Cowley put on the pitching staff, Stoy noted Sunday’s workload was scripted in advance. Starter Seth Broadwell was to go the first four innings, while relievers Manuel Toro, Brody Gleason, Ethan Payne and Brayden Thompson would each follow, in that order.
Each shined in his respective role.
Broadwell was dazzling through the first three innings, but wobbled a bit with his control in the fourth, leading to five Northern Oklahoma runs.
“Seth did a good job,” Stoy said. “That’s the deepest he’s pitched in a game this season.”
The bullpen by committee approach worked out brilliantly from there, keying Allen’s comeback.
Allen plated four runs in the bottom of the third, all with two out. Armando Navarro got things started with an RBI double. Carson Shepherd sent him home with a single two batters later before Tyler Martin plated two more when he ripped a single to left to push the lead to 4-0.
But that advantage was brief. Two walks, two hit batters and three Jet hits in Northern Oklahoma’s fourth inning put Allen behind, 5-4, a margin that stood until the bottom of the seventh.
Garrett Rusch and Cale Clark started the frame with singles, before Navarro was hit by a pitch to load the bases with nobody out.
A wild pitch brought Rusch home to knot the score, and put runners on second and third. But Clark was tagged out at home on a squeeze bunt attempt, and a pair of ground-outs followed to end the threat with the game still tied.
But after Northern Oklahoma went down in order to start the eighth, Allen kept up its hit parade. Tyler Martin reached on an infield single, and Northern Oklahoma’s pitcher misplayed Colton Ayers’s sacrifice bunt attempt, putting runners on second and third.
Parker Martin pushed the Red Devils ahead, 6-5, on a sacrifice fly to left. Navarro’s soft ground ball to short resulted in a second Jet error of the frame, allowing Ayers to score on an all-important insurance run.
