The Missouri Tigers baseball team continued its climb from the ground up by taking three of four games in a series with Central Michigan that began Friday at Taylor Stadium. The successful series returned the Tigers to .500 with a 10-10 record and pushed their win streak to seven games.
Missouri seemed to find its sweet stroke early in each of the three victories. The Tigers kicked off the series with three first inning runs and two second inning runs in a 7-6 Friday victory. The tight game came down to the wire, but in his Big 12 Conference-leading 12th appearance senior reliever Phil McCormick locked down the final 2.1 innings for his second save of the season.
Sophomore Eric Garcia was the offensive story for the Tigers on Friday night. The infielder continued his strong homestand at the plate with three hits, two runs and an RBI to lead Missouri to the victory.
“We had everybody contributing in some way, on the field or off the field,” Garcia said. “It all came together and I think we’re really on a roll right now.”
That roll continued with another early offensive strike Saturday. The Tigers scored five of a season-high 14 runs in the first inning en route to defeating the Chippewas 14-7 in the second game of the series.
The entire Missouri outfield led the 15-hit parade. Sophomore Brannon Champagne led the team with three hits as sophomore Dane Opel and senior Jonah Schmidt collected two hits each.
With 12 different players hitting and nine different scoring, the game served as the team’s best offensive performance of the 2011 season. But in coach Tim Jamieson’s eyes, it was even more than that.
“It’s probably the best game all-around we’ve had the whole year at this point,” he said.
The all-around performance included a two-run, eight strikeout performance by junior winning pitcher Matt Stites.
Champagne said the game also served as a rare accomplishment of finally putting a team to rest.
“Usually we score first and we kind of doze off,” Champagne said. “Today we kept at it and scored a lot of runs and put them away early.”
Early hitting was the story again in the first game of the Sunday doubleheader, which the Tigers won by an 8-6 count. Missouri plated six runs in the first three innings, including a four-run third, before sweating out another McCormick save for the win.
The trio of Opel, senior designated hitter Ryan Ampleman and junior third baseman Connor Mach collected three-hit games en route to the victory.
The Tiger offense had no such production in the final game of the series, collecting just one run on five hits in an 8-1 defeat.
“We came out a little bit flat in the second game,” Mach said. “In the first inning, we didn’t really jump on them like we did in the first three games.”
Despite concluding with a loss, the series seemed to provide a positive stepping-stone toward the upcoming Big 12 season, according to Mach.
“This weekend, we swung the bats well (and) we pitched well,” Mach said. “We built our confidence up.”
The Tigers will conclude their non-conference portion of the homestand with two games against Central Arkansas on Tuesday and Wednesday.
