CARBONDALE, Ill. – Missouri State hit a season-high six home runs and Michael Yusypchuk opened a second consecutive series with a complete game as the Bears took out Southern Illinois 12-1 in seven innings Sunday at Itchy Jones Stadium.
MoState (15-13, 6-1 MVC) scored multiple runs in five consecutive innings to take the opener of a series between the league co-leaders that began two days late due to weather and concludes Monday with a 1 p.m. doubleheader.
Yusypchuk (3-1) scattered four hits and struck out four in the complete-game effort and got all the offense he needed on Caden Bogenpohl’s two-run homer in the third inning.
The Bears didn’t stop there, however, adding three more runs the next inning to knock MVC ERA leader Alex Nigut (5-1) after 3.2 frames. MoState strung together three straight two-out singles and scored when Curry Sutherland was hit by a pitch before Bogenpohl drove in two more with a double to match his career high of four RBIs on his 20th birthday.
Max Knight led off the fifth with a home run and Dylan Robertson later walked and scored on a Tyler Epstein single for a 7-0 lead.
SIU (21-8, 5-2) used a pair of extra-base hits for its lone in the fifth, and the Bears countered with three more homers in the sixth. Nick Rodriguez led off with his fifth round-tripper of the year to extend his hitting streak to 15 games, then Knight and Carter Bergman went back-to-back later in the inning to make it 10-1 and giving Knight his first career multi-homer game.
Rodriguez doubled and scored on Jake McCutcheon’s homer in the seventh to secure the necessary 10-run margin for the run rule, and Knight followed with a double to give him 10 total bases on the day.
MoState’s six homers were the team’s most since May 3 of last season against Murray State, and the Bears have earned the run rule victory in all three MVC openers.
