PEORIA, Ill. – Missouri State split a doubleheader with Bradley Saturday at Dozer Park, winning 14-0 and losing 10-2 to come away with a Missouri Valley Conference series victory.
The Bears (13-17, 3-6) earned their first run-rule victory of the season in the opener before Bradley (10-18, 4-5) scored early and often in the nightcap.
Missouri State plays at Oral Roberts at 6 p.m. Tuesday.
Game 1 Recap – Missouri State won, 14-0 (7 innings)
Jason Schaaf (1-1) struck out a career-high six batters in five innings of work, and Hunter Day threw the final two frames to complete MSU’s first back-to-back shutouts since March 2017, as the Bears claimed a 14-0 run-rule victory following Friday’s 9-0 win.
The Bears clubbed three home runs, with Zack Stewart driving in four and finishing a triple short of the cycle, and Dylan Leach reaching safely four times and scoring three runs.
Leach doubled and scored on Taeg Gollert’s RBI ground out in the third for the game’s first run, and the Bears made Bradley pay for three walks in the fourth, scoring six runs on a Tyler Epstein RBI single, Leach two-run single and Stewart three-run bomb, his 10th of the season.
Epstein added a two-run homer in the fifth to make it 9-0, and MoState piled up five more runs in the sixth courtesy of a Stewart RBI single, run-scoring ground outs by Logan Chambers and Nick Rodriguez, and a two-run homer by Jahlani Rogers.
Game 2 Recap – Bradley won, 10-2
After being held scoreless for nearly 18 innings to begin the series, Bradley scored in each of innings 2-6 to salvage the final game by a 10-2 score.
The Braves scored a run in four hits in the second inning, four runs in the third, turned leadoff hit batters into runs in both the fourth and fifth frames, and capped it with a two-run sixth.
Leach provided the offense for the Bears with solo homers in the sixth and ninth innings, good for his first multi-homer game of the season. The senior now has eight long balls on the year and reached safely six times in the twinbill.
