Missouri State secured its second consecutive 3-0 start to a season by sweeping a doubleheader from the University of Central Arkansas Saturday at Bear Stadium. MSU got the go-ahead two-run homer from Jake Burger in the top of the ninth of the first game for a 6-5 victory, then scored in four straight innings in the nightcap to pull out a 10-6 win.
MSU used a dominant mound performance from Sam Perez and a mammoth power display by Burger to climb out of a 5-1 hole in the first game. Burger’s two-run homer – his second of the game – with one out in the deciding inning, tipped the scales in MSU’s favor for good, and fellow All-American Bryan Young locked up the win with a scoreless home half of the ninth.
Burger, who finished the game 3-for-5 with four runs batted-in, launched a line-drive solo shot over the left field wall in the top of the first, then added a two-out RBI single in the fifth to help spur the Bears’ late rally. The sophomore torched UCA all weekend, hitting ..417 and slugging 1.167 with three homers and seven RBIs in the series.
The Bears’ game one win was made possible by the relief work of Perez (1-0), who was pressed into early duty in the second inning and effectively kept the home club off the scoreboard for the next 6 2/3 innings. The senior right-hander struck out six and scattered four hits and retired 15 of the last 16 batters he faced to give his offense time to mount its comeback.
UCA (0-3) overcame its early 1-0 deficit with a five-run second inning that was capped by Tyler Langley’s tie-breaking grand slam off MSU starter Ryan Dunne. UCA took advantage of some early wildness from the Bears’ junior hurler, who issued four walks in his 1 1/3 innings, in addition to back-to-back extra-base hits from Matt Anderson and Justin McCarty that sparked the big inning.
A leadoff single by Matt Fultz and an error on Jeremy Eierman’s bouncer to third ignited MSU’s fifth-inning rally. Aaron Meyer brought in MSU’s second tally with a sacrifice fly, before Burger’s liner to center plated Eierman to make it a 5-3 game. Eduardo Castro delivered the key blow in the Bears’ eighth, lacing a two-out double to left-center to close the gap to one run.
With the Bears trailing 5-4, Meyer’s one-out, infield single got the ball rolling in the ninth, before Burger lofted a towering drive that landed well beyond the left-field scoreboard.
Game two once again saw the home team claim an early lead, as MSU starter Dylan Coleman issued three first-inning walks and hit another batter to hand UCA a 1-0 advantage. The freshman right-hander found his groove late in the inning with back-to-back strikeouts to limit the damage. Coleman then fanned two more Bears in the second and finished with five over his 5.0 innings of work.
MSU leveled the score in the third thanks to a UCA error, as Meyer’s ground ball scored Jeremy Eierman from third. The Bears would use a leadoff double by Blake Graham to set off a three-run rally in the fourth to claim the upper hand. Eierman’s chopper to second plated Graham, before Hunter Steinmetz tripled home two more runs.
Graham went deep for a two-run homer the following inning, and Justin Paulsen’s run-scoring double in the sixth pushed the lead to 8-3. The Bears added two more runs in the eighth with the help of another UCA miscue, three wild pitches and a Graham sac fly. The junior outfielder paced the MSU attack with a 2-for-4, three-RBI effort in game two.
Coleman (1-0) limited UCA to three runs on three hits and four walks, only one of which came after the first inning. Sophomore reliever Jake Fromson turned in a solid debut performance in support of Coleman, working three hitless innings in which he allowed just one baserunner.
Burger followed up his game one heroics by reaching base safely in all five of his trips to the place and scoring three times.
Missouri State will be back in action Friday (Feb. 26) when they open play at the Governors Challenge in Clarksville, Tenn., with an 11:30 a.m. game against UConn.
