Cowboys Drop Third Straight

Oklahoma State suffered its third-straight loss Tuesday night as Wichita State knocked off the 15th-ranked Cowboys, 6-4, at Allie P. Reynolds Stadium.

With the loss, the Cowboys fell to 11-5 on the season. The loss was the third in a row for OSU at Reynolds Stadium, marking just the fifth time in the 34-year history of their home ballpark that the Cowboys have lost more than two consecutive games.

Despite recording a career-high eight strikeouts, Mark Robinette suffered the loss on the mound to fall to 0-1. The Cowboys managed only six hits in the contest, with Tanner Krietemeier and Gage Green each going 2-for-4 at the plate.

"It was a fight between two good teams; we had a chance there at the end but came up a little short," said OSU head coach Josh Holliday. "We made a few mistakes that opened the door, and they're a good team – they took advantage of some of those mistakes early on and built up a pretty hefty lead.

"But our kids played awfully well and awfully hard the last six innings so we've just got to pick up where we left off and come out Thursday with a good outlook and ready to go."

As has been its tendency of late, OSU fell behind early. In the first inning, the Shockers (10-4) plated a pair of runs on an RBI single by Chase Simpson and a sacrifice fly by Micah Green.

In the third, WSU pushed its lead to 6-0. The Shockers opened the inning with two singles and a walk to load the bases before Robinette struck out Green. Following an RBI groundout, Tanner Kirk delivered a two-out, two-RBI single before an error led to WSU's sixth run.

OSU answered with a pair of runs in the bottom of the third. Green led off with a single before stealing second and third, which allowed him to score on a wild pitch. Donnie Walton then plated the Cowboys' second run with an RBI single.

The Cowboys trimmed their deficit in half in the fourth on an RBI sacrifice bunt by Craig McConaughy that made it 6-3, a score that held until the ninth inning.

After his first three innings, Robinette, who was making his third start of the season, kept the Shockers off the scoreboard over the next three frames as he allowed just one hit over that span.

"(Robinette) did good; he settled in and threw a nice ballgame, kept us out of the bullpen until the seventh inning, which we needed," Holliday said. "He showed some good courage and pitched through some jams, made some nice pitches. I think he pitched better than the box score would indicate."

But the OSU offense could not mount a late rally. Its best chance came in the ninth, when Krietemeier led off the inning with a double and scored on an error to make the score 6-4. The Cowboys then brought the tying run to the plate twice, but Foster Vielock kept the home team off the scoreboard to earn his fourth save of the season.

OSU returns to action Thursday when it hosts Abilene Christian at 3 p.m. before a three-game series with Texas-Pan American on Friday and Saturday at Reynolds Stadium.