GREAT BEND - The Kansas Wesleyan Baseball team opened the KCAC tournament with a 5-1 win over the Evangel Valor on Thursday at the Great Bend Sports Complex.
Thursday's games were delayed by two hours on Thursday morning due to a line of storms that developed in the area and continued to plague the area during the early morning.
The Coyotes had to wait their turn as the top seed, playing the last game of the evening.
It was a scoreless game until the bottom of the fourth when the Coyotes broke through. Cruz Oxford started the rally with a single to short, followed by a hit by Tyler Favretto. Reece Bishop advanced the base runners with a fly out and the Zack Beatty broke the scoreless tie with a single through the left side to score Oxford and put the Coyotes up 1-0.
Evangel tied it in the top of the sixth and it was 1-1 until the bottom of the second when the Coyote offense finally came alive.
Adrian Villalobos led off the inning with a single and moved to second on Alex Garcia's sacrifice. Two batters later, the Coyotes got it going as Kendall Foster snuck one down the line in left for a RBI double, and Jarrett Gable followed with a RBI triple. Oxford then added a RBI double in the inning to make it 4-1.
Evangel threatened in the eighth, but Ritter Steinmann forced a line out to first to end the inning with a runner on third for the Valor.
The Coyotes added one more run in the eighth. Villalobos walked and then scored when Garcia reached on an error in the outfield.
Oxford had three of KWU's 10 hits in the game. Zach Westbrook went seven innings for the Coyotes, allowing a run on seven hits, while striking out eight in the win. Ritter Steinmann pitched the eighth and Ryan Sandoval pitched the ninth with two strikeouts.
Wesleyan is back in action on Friday taking on McPherson at 6:45 p.m. A victory over the Bulldogs pushes the Coyotes into the top bracket final at 6:45 p.m. on Saturday. The loser plays again at 12:15 p.m. on Saturday in an elimination game.