OMAHA, Neb. -- Top-seeded Oral Roberts belted three home runs en route to a 8-1 victory over No. 3 seed Omaha Friday to advance to the 2025 Summit League Baseball Championship title game at Tal Anderson Field. The win also made head coach Ryan Folmar the winningest in conference history as his squad secured the 379th of his Summit League career.
Folmar was able to get the record-breaking victory thanks in large to part to those roundtrippers and Brenden Asher, who fired the first complete game of his career, limiting the Mavericks to just one earned run on three hits, while equaliing his career-high with six strikeouts.
After being blanked in their winner's bracket tilt with North Dakota State Thursday, right fielder Will Edmunson wasted little time putting Oral Roberts on the scoreboard today with a solo home run on the third pitch of the game he saw from Omaha starter Joel Benes.
Asher looked comfortable from the get-go as a one-out single by Summit League Player of the Year Henry Zipay in the first was the only base hit he would surrender in the opening three frames, while Benes, who is normally a bullpen arm for the Mavericks, yielded just the one run on the Edmunson blast during his season-long three innings of work.
In the fourth, Jack Schark doubled ORU's advantage with a solo homer as he connected on his first hit of the tournament off Omaha reliever Brayden Curtis.
Asher had retired nine Mavericks in a row before hitting Tyler Bishop with one out in the fourth but he was set down on a strike-'em-out, throw-'em-out double play.
ORU used a pair of extra-base hits in the fifth to push its lead to 5-0. Martell Davis provided a two-run homer and Wailele Kane-Yates capped the scoring with an RBI double.
The Mavericks were finally able to crack Asher in the fifth when Cardell Dick opened the scoring for Omaha with a two-out RBI single. That would be the only run they would be able to push across as Asher went three more innings than his previous career-long of six.
The Golden Eagles would get that run back plus one more in the seventh on a pair of two-out RBI singles from Schark and Makani Tanaka.
After Dicks' RBI single in the fifth, Asher would only give up a one-out walk to Eli Hoerner in the seventh over the rest of the contest as he improved to 3-2 on the season.
Schark would finish off the scoring for ORU with an RBI single in the ninth as he led a 12-hit attack for the Golden Eagles with three base knocks.
Pitcher of Record
Win – Brenden Asher (3-2): 9.0 IP, 3 hits, 1 earned run, 1 walk, 6 strikeouts
Loss – Joel Benes (0-1): 3.0 IP, 3 hits, 1 earned run, 0 walks, 2 strikeouts
Notable Notes
• Oral Roberts has now advanced to the tournament title game in all 25 appearances and have won 22 Summit League postseason trophies
• Oral Roberts' Ryan Folmar broke the Summit League record for career victories, securing his 379th to surpass former Valparaiso head coach Paul Twenge for the all-time lead
• The Golden Eagles' 11 hits were the most by a team in the 2025 tournament as four different Golden Eagles logged multiple hits
• Asher's seven innings marked his longest outing of the season as he picked up back-to-back wins for the first time in his career
• Saturday's championship game will be a rematch of the same one played at Tal Anderson Field in 2021 when the Golden Eagles forced the "if necessary" game but would be the Bison that prevailed by winning the program's second tournament title
Up Next
No. 1 seed Oral Roberts will play No. 2 seed North Dakota State in Saturday's championship game at 1 p.m. CT. If the Golden Eagles win the first game, there will be an "if necessary" game to follow 30 minutes after its conclusion.
#SummitBSB
