LEBANON, ILL. – The University of Missouri-St. Louis baseball team improved to 8-0 overall, including 4-0 in the Great Lakes Valley Conference on Monday by closing out a four-game series with the Bearcats with two more victories. The Tritons took the opener, 5-1, before rallying back to post a 13-10 win in the nightcap.
 
UMSL's 8-0 start is the program's best since the 1998 team also opened 8-0, while the eight straight victories mark the longest win streak since the 2013 team strung together 10. The Tritons also begin GLVC play at 4-0 for the first time since 2005 when UMSL took four games from Lewis to open league play.
 
McKendree slips to 1-10 overall and 0-4 in the GLVC.
 
Junior Justin Busekrus went a combined 5-for-9 at the plate on the day for the Tritons with three homeruns, two doubles, five RBIs and four runs scored, while producing a slugging percentage of 1.778.
 
UMSL will open a five-game homestand on Thursday at 3 p.m. with a single nonconference game against Illinois Springfield before a four-game GLVC weekend series with defending national champion Southern Indiana.
 
GAME 1: UMSL 5, McKendree 1
UMSL scored five runs on five hits, one each by five different players.
 
Busekrus gave the Tritons an early 1-0 advantage with a solo homerun, while senior Daniel Seddon drove in run number two with a sac fly in the third.
 
A pair of McKendree errors led to a third Tritons run in the fifth inning, while in the seventh senior Shane Brinker brought in two runners with his double.
 
McKendree plated its lone run in the bottom of the seventh.
 
Junior A.J. McElderry (2-0) registered the win in six and two-thirds of an inning, while junior Austin Simokaitis recorded his third straight save in the series by striking out the final Bearcat. McElderry allowed just two hits and the one run while striking out seven and issuing three walks.
 
GAME 2: UMSL 13, McKendree 11
UMSL rallied back from three different deficits to garner the win, including scoring three runs in the top of the ninth for the final score to erase an 11-10 McKendree lead. The Tritons scored two runs on a Bearcats fielding error to go ahead and then added an insurance run on a wild pitch.
 
Redshirt sophomore Kevin Smith, who was plagued by injuries in his first two seasons, picked up the win in his first career appearance on the mound. Smith went six and two-thirds of an inning in relief, striking out seven, while scattering four hits and walking three in allowing just one run.
 
Offensively, Busekrus recorded two doubles and two homeruns and finished with four RBIs and three runs scored, while senior Dylan Fieth was 3-for-5 at the plate with a double, a homerun, two RBIs and two runs scored.
 
Both teams tallied 13 hits in the slugfest.
 
The Tritons erased a 1-0 McKendree lead in the third inning with five runs on four hits, including a two-run homerun from Fieth. Senior JJ Kinnevan added an RBI single, while Seddon and junior Jarret Clark each tallied an RBI groundout.
 
The Bearcats then broke out for nine runs in the bottom of that frame, recording six hits, while taking advantage of two UMSL errors. McKendree nearly batted around its order twice, sending 15 batters to the plate while taking a 10-5 lead.
 
The Tritons slowly began chipping away at the deficit, scoring twice in the fifth, once on a Busekrus homerun and once on a RBI single from Brinker.
 
Busekrus struck again in the sixth inning with another homerun – his second of the game and third of the day – with a two-run shot to knot the score at 10-10.
 
Smith's only mistake came in the bottom of the sixth with a bases loaded walk that put McKendree ahead 11-10, but he got out of the jam as McKendree hit into a double play and allowed just two baserunners the rest of the game.