Box score

STILLWATER, OK—Junior second baseman Brendan McCurry hit a two-strike, two-run home run in the bottom of the sixth inning to break a 2-2 tie and send Oklahoma State on to a 5-2 win over visiting NJIT Sunday afternoon in the last of a three-game weekend baseball series.
 
Oklahoma State extended its winning streak to five straight games and is now 7-1 on the season. NJIT is still looking for its first win after the sweep by the powerful Cowboys. The Highlanders (0-5) opened 2013 with a pair of losses at North Carolina Central last weekend.
 
However, the Highlanders acquitted themselves well against one of the most respected programs in the college game. Oklahoma State has qualified for the NCAA Tournament 35 times and reached the College World Series 19 times. To put that in perspective from a Northeast point of view, the region of the country north of Virginia and in the Eastern Time Zone did not have a single team reach the College World Series from 1980 through 2011 (UConn was in the 1979 CWS and Stony Brook reached it in 2012).
 
The Cowboys won Saturday's opening game, 11-1, but a combined eight runs in the fifth and sixth innings blew open what had been a 3-1 game going to the bottom of the fifth. The next game stood at 3-2 for Oklahoma State going to the bottom of the seventh and ended at 6-3 for the home team. And Sunday's finale was tighter still, with the deciding runs crossing the plate in the bottom of the sixth.
 
NJIT never led in the Oklahoma State series, but there were two ties, the second at 2-2 heading to the bottom of the sixth inning on Sunday.
 
The decisive frame began with Highlander senior Mark Leiter, Jr. working near his maximum pitch count for his second start of the young season. 3B Robbie Rea (3-for-3) doubled to lead off the Cowboys half of the sixth inning and then Brendan McCurry drove Leiter's last pitch of the day over the left field fence to break the tie and lift OSU to a 4-2 lead.
 
Leiter (0-2) was credited with 5.1 innings pitched and allowed six hits and four runs, with five strikeouts and three walks. He was relieved by junior RHP Matt Coughlin, who allowed hits to his first two batters, but escaped a bases-loaded jam without allowing any more runs. Coughlin, who surrendered single run in the seventh, finished with 2.2 innings, four hits, the one run, three walks, and two strikeouts.
 
Sophomore LHP Tyler Nurdin, working on a pitch count of his own after redshirting last season with a shoulder injury, started for OSU and pitched four scoreless innings with four hits allowed. He gave way to senior lefty Kenton Bevacqua, who pitched a third of an inning and allowed both NJIT runs.
 
Next on the mound for the Cowboys was sophomore RHP Jon Perrin, who would get credit for the win (2-0) on 1.2 innings pitched with a hit and a walk allowed. Senior Randy McCurry, older brother of Brendan, then picked up his first save of the year with three innings of scoreless, hitless relief.
 
Oklahoma State finished with 10 hits, led by Rea's 3-for-3. Two of Rea's hits were doubles and Brendan McCurry's decisive home run rounded out the extra-base hits for the winners. C Gage Green went 2-for-3 and five Cowboys had one hit each.
 
NJIT finished with seven hits, topped by 3B Matt Weckerle (2-for-4). The only extra-base hit for the Highlanders was a fifth-inning two-run double by freshman outfielder Jake Stern (1-for-3).
 
The Cowboys built a 2-0 lead through four innings, plating single runs in the second and fourth innings. DH Victor Romero, who had reached on a fielder's choice scored the first run on an RBI ground out by Green in the second inning. The second OSU run came home in the fourth inning on a passed ball.
 
The Highlanders drew even with a pair of runs in the top of the fifth inning. Mike Rampone, at DH on Sunday, opened the rally with a one-out single up the middle and Weckerle moved him up a base with a single to center field. Perrin, who would get the win, took the mound and got the second out for the Cowboys. But Stern then delivered his first college hit, a double to left field that brought home the two runs.
 
Each team then had a scoreless half-inning, before Brendan McCurry's homer broke the tie and Oklahoma State got its final run in the seventh on a bases-loaded, two-out walk to CF Jarrett Higgins.
 
NJIT, which doesn't have a home game scheduled until March 20, will return to action next weekend in Baltimore with a three-game series at Coppin State. The teams are slated for a doubleheader on Saturday, March 2, with first pitch of the opening game at 1 pm.