Missouri redshirt junior Bryce Montes de Oca wanted to keep pitching, but head coach Steve Bieser had other ideas.
After tossing seven innings of no-hit ball, Montes de Oca hit a pitch count of 98 and was replaced. His team picked him up, however, going on to win 7-1 over the visiting University of Maryland Baltimore County Retrievers on Friday night in the first-ever matchup between the two schools.
Montes de Oca struck out five of the first nine Retriever batters he faced. He didn’t allow a man to reach base until the fifth inning, when he walked the leadoff batter. When all was finished, he allowed no runs on no hits while striking out 12.
First baseman Kameron Misner and third baseman Brian Sharp supplied the bulk of the offense for the Tigers. Each had three hits and three runs batted in. Misner finished a single shy of the cycle, homering in the third inning, tripling in the fifth and doubling in the seventh.
Giovanni Lopez, who replaced Montes de Oca, ran into some trouble in the eighth inning, walking one man while hitting another and throwing a wild pitch. This allowed one Retriever run to score, but Lopez preserved the no-hitter.
Nolan Gromacki pitched a scoreless ninth inning and finished the no-hit bid for the Tigers.
The combined no-hitter is the 10th in Tiger program history and the first since 2005, when Max Scherzer and Michael Cole held Big 12 Conference foe Texas Tech hitless.
“I can’t remember the last no-hitter I was a part of, but I very rarely remember what happened yesterday,” Bieser said in a press release.
The Tigers will be back in action Saturday with a 2 p.m. matchup against the UMBC Retrievers.
_Edited by Joe Noser | jnoser@themaneater.com_