Missouri baseball (2-1) swung into season with a three-game series against Jacksonville State (1-2) this past weekend. The Tigers won the first two of the three games with scores of 10-4, 6-4 and 8-9.
In its first game of the season on Friday, Feb. 14, Missouri posted 10 runs on 11 hits and only one error. Junior Ian Bedell secured the win for the Tigers with 11 strikeouts during six innings pitched.
Five Tigers posted multi-hit games with junior Chad McDaniel and redshirt freshman Seth Halvorsen contributing a home run each. Senior Peter Zimmerman went 1.000 on the day with one hit, three walks and an RBI.
“This was a game that was back and forth,” coach Steve Bieser said. “The good thing was seeing our offense continuing to battle, especially in the middle innings. Ian [Bedell] came out today and threw the ball outstanding.”
On Saturday, Feb. 15, a long back-and-forth game saw the Tigers top the Gamecocks in 12 innings, 6-4. Missouri was behind 2-4 in the top of the eighth inning before rallying on four hits, putting the score at 4-4 where it would remain until the 12th inning.
Redshirt junior Brandt Belk had the game-winning RBI on a fielder’s choice that scored junior Mark Vierling in the 12th inning while the combined relief of pitchers Spencer Juergens and Trey Dillard held Jacksonville State scoreless for the last six innings.
McDaniel recorded another multi-hit game against the Gamecocks with two hits, two runs and one RBI.
“That was about as hard as you could do it for a comeback win,” Bieser said. “Our guys did an outstanding job of staying the course.”
Missouri picked up its first loss of the season against the Gamecocks on Sunday, Feb. 16 falling 9-8.
The Tigers were off to a rough start after the first inning finished, already trailing Jacksonville State 5-1 but evened the score at 5-5 in the top of the second. The game was back-and-forth for awhile with Missouri possessing a 6-5 lead in the fourth inning.
Though they posted a run in each of the final two innings, the Tigers couldn’t pull off another comeback win.
Despite losing to the Gamecocks in game three, Vierling went 3-3 in the final game of the series with four runs and two RBIs. Junior Jackson Lancaster went 2-5 and sophomore Tre Morris went 1-3 with two RBIs and a walk.
Missouri travels to Corpus Christi, Texas to play three games in the Kleberg Bank College Classic starting Friday, Feb. 21.
_Edited by Wilson Moore | wmoore@themaneater.com_
