The story seemed to be repeating itself once more. Yet again, MU baseball found itself trailing by a small margin heading into the bottom of the ninth, just as it had to Oklahoma, Texas A&M and Baylor.
But with two outs, the bases loaded and facing a full count, junior outfielder Brannon Champagne ensured that this time the outcome fell on Missouri’s side. Champagne watched as ball four came to the plate, as did the winning run, as the Tigers (20-17, 6-9 Big 12 Conference) won the game 4-3 in walk-off fashion versus Kansas State on Saturday at Taylor Stadium.
The comeback played before the eyes of 2,049 at Taylor Stadium, the seventh largest total in school baseball history. Champagne cited the atmosphere as a major factor in the Tiger victory.
“It’s huge,” Champagne said. “The whole game the crowd was in it. It’s just awesome to see all that and it definitely helps us a lot. It was a big part of our win today.”
Coach Tim Jamieson reiterated Champagne, saying the Missouri victory would not have been possible had it not been for the crowd’s involvement.
“They’ve got a freshman pitcher on the mound, nervous,” Jamieson said. “He had to step off because it was so loud. That’s something that we’ll hopefully continue to have. (The crowd) deserves as much credit as our players for that last run.”
Missouri fans did not have much to cheer about throughout the first few innings, as the Wildcats jumped out to an early 1-0 lead in the first inning.
Starting junior pitcher Blake Holovach had a decent game, allowing five Kansas State hits, but the Wildcats began to key on him in the sixth. With no outs and the bases loaded, largely due to two walks, Kansas State left fielder Jon Davis singled through the right side to drive in his team’s second run of the game. The Wildcats would add one more before the Tigers managed to escape the inning.
Trailing 3-0, it was clear that the Tiger offense needed to muster some sort of response. Throughout the entire game, the Tigers had been shooting themselves in the foot time after time, stranding men on base when the opportunity to score presented itself.
“You’ve just got to keep on keeping on,” junior outfielder Blake Brown said. “You can’t really let it get to you. Yesterday when runners got on, runners came in and that’s pretty much how it worked but that’s not how it’s going to work every day. We just (had) to keep going and see what we could do later in the game because we were going to get more opportunities.”
The Tiger bats managed to capitalize on the opportunities in the seventh, tallying two runs to bring the game back within reach. The score would remain the same heading into the bottom of the ninth, and it looked as if the Tigers would lose yet another close one.
That was until Brown came up to the plate.
With the crowd imploring, Brown swung at the first pitch that came his way, sending a screaming grounder through the left side for a single to start a late-game comeback push. Brown would later come around to score on a Dane Opel line-drive single, and with the bases loaded and two outs Champagne walked to bring the winning run home.
The Tigers will square off against Kansas State again at 1 p.m. Sunday at Taylor Stadium.