OKLAHOMA CITY (Feb. 8, 2020) – Battling from behind the entire softball game on a day when they didn't have their best stuff, the Oklahoma Christian Eagles needed a hero to step forward on Saturday afternoon at Tom Heath Field.

Senior Bailey Strecker took on that role, delivering a single to right field to score Lindsey Stoeckel from third base in the bottom of the eighth inning and giving the Eagles a 10-9 win over Pittsburg State (Kan.) on the second day of the Edmond Regional Festival.

OC (7-1) never led against Pitt State (2-5) until Strecker's hit, despite rolling up 17 hits and having five players record at least two hits. That's because the Gorillas had 12 hits of their own to go with six hit batsmen by OC pitchers.

Pitt State went ahead in the sixth inning when Karrah Dean hit the Gorillas' Madison Wegner with a pitch with the bases loaded and Makayla Lamphier followed with an RBI single off reliever Kali Crandall to make it 9-7. Crandall (3-0) settled down to end the inning with a pair of strikeouts, then recorded two more Ks in the seventh to keep the Eagles' deficit at two runs.

Freshman Katelyn Dunckel led off the bottom of the seventh with a sharp single to left field and Kelsey Gammage followed with a towering double to left-center field. With one out, Brie Dunckel's infield single scored her younger sister and another freshman, Hannah Pate, singled to left field to score Gammage and tie the game.

The international tiebreaker was used in the eighth inning, in which a runner is placed on second base to start the inning. But the Gorillas still came up empty, never advancing their runner against Crandall.

Stoeckel started the bottom of the eighth on second. Brianna Robinson's sacrifice bunt moved Stoeckel to third base ahead of Strecker's game-winning hit off Pitt State reliever Kaylee Burnett (1-2).

The Eagles will play two games in the festival on Sunday, facing Southwest Baptist at noon and Missouri Southern at 2 p.m.