SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – Missouri State built a commanding eight-run lead and used eight shutout innings to cruise to a 16-1 victory over Missouri Tuesday evening at Hammons Field. Austin Knight and a trio of relievers held the Tigers in check, before the MSU offense put the game – and the largest victory for either club in the 51-game history of the series – on ice with an eight-run explosion in the eighth inning.
Knight (3-0) limited MU to five hits while striking out five in his 5.0 innings, while Jake Fromson and Sam Perez allowed just three baserunners over their three combined frames. MSU’s offense struck for two early runs, then posted three-run rallies in the fourth and fifth innings to build an 8-0 lead.
CLICK HERE TO VIEW A PHOTO GALLERY FROM THE BEARS 16-1 WIN
Jake Burger started the Bears’ eighth-inning outburst with a leadoff single, then capped it with a three-run homer that extended the MSU lead to 16-0. The Bears, who also got two-run singles from Matt Fultz and Spencer Johnson in the eighth, touched up MU pitching for six of their 14 hits in the inning, which represented Missouri State’s largest scoring inning since the opening game of the 2015 NCAA Springfield Regional vs. Canisius, when MSU also tallied eight runs in their 14-1 win.
Fultz and Aaron Meyer paced the MSU attack, combining to go 5-for-6 with six runs scored and four runs batted-in. Meyer finished 2-for-2 with a double, a pair of walks, three runs scored and an RBI single, while Fultz turned in a season high for hits (3) and matched career-best totals for both runs scored (3) and RBIs (3). Johnson also enjoyed a big night, driving in four runs thanks in part to a two-run single that preceded Burger’s 14th home run of the season – a laser shot off the back wall of the Bears’ bullpen in left field.
Missouri State’s big offensive night continued a recent trend in the series and handed the Bears their fourth straight victory over the Tigers. MSU has tallied 49 runs in its last three home contests and has outscored MU by a 38-9 margin in its last three contests in Springfield dating back to the 2014 season.
The 15-run victory surpassed MSU’s 20-10 win in Columbia on April 16, 2002, as its biggest win over the Tigers, as well as MU’s 12-run victory on March 22, 1975, as the largest overall decision in the series. It also stretched MSU’s win streak against Division I teams from the state of Missouri to eight in a row dating back to the 2014 season.
After a scoreless first inning, the Bears (26-6) jumped on MU starter Ryan Lee (2-2) in the second to grab an early lead. Blake Grahamgot the ball rolling by drawing a leadoff walk, before Jeremy Eierman doubled him home with a gap shot to left-center field. Fultz then drove a run-scoring single to right to plate Eierman for a 2-0 MSU advantage.
The Bears tacked on three more in the fourth, using a walk, two hit batsmen and a pair of errors to hike their lead to five runs. The first of Johnson’s two sacrifice flies in the game, as well as a bases loaded hit-by-pitch for Hunter Steinmetz accounted for two of the runs while a throwing error on Justin Paulsen’s fielder’s choice grounder to third resulted in the third.
In the fifth, Fultz’s one-out single kicked off a string of four consecutive hits for MSU, with Meyer and Steinmetz driving in runs with their base hits and Johnson plating another with a sac fly to center.
Knight, meanwhile, faced few difficulties in holding the Tigers scoreless. The sophomore worked out of third-inning jam by retiring Jake Ring on an inning-ending fly ball to right, stranding a pair of runners in scoring position. Zach Lavy would double with one out in the fourth, but Knight would squash the threat with back-to-back strikeouts to keep MU off the scoreboard. Fultz then gunned down his second would-be base-stealer of the night in the fifth after a Connor Brumfield leadoff single.
Fromson followed with 2.0 innings of one-hit relief, before Perez worked a scoreless eighth inning. The Tigers would not get on the board until Jack Klages’ bloop single with two out in the ninth scored Marquise Doherty, who reached base on the lone MSU error of the game to start the inning.
Lavy and Ryan Howard led the Tigers (20-15) with two-hit games, while Nolan Gromacki and Austin Tribby posted scoreless innings as the only two of the eight Tiger pitchers to keep MSU off the board.
Missouri State returns to the road for its second Missouri Valley Conference series, beginning Friday (April 12) with a 6:30 p.m. game against Wichita State at Eck Stadium.
