ST. LOUIS, MO. – The University of Missouri-St. Louis baseball team defeated No. 29 ranked William Jewell, 8-5, in the first of two Great Lakes Valley Conference contests on Saturday, while the visiting Cardinals took the nightcap, 7-2.
 
UMSL moves to 17-9 overall, including 12-9 in the GLVC, while William Jewell is now 24-8 overall and 15-6 in the league. The two teams will close out their four-game series tomorrow with one game at 12 p.m.
 
GAME 1: UMSL 8, William Jewell 5
UMSL belted out 12 hits, including three from senior JJ Kinnevan, who also scored three runs.
 
The Tritons took advantage of two Cardinals errors in the first inning to plate two runs and also added runs on a sacy fly from junior Justin Busekrus and an RBI single from senior Shane Brinker. Busekrus added his second RBI with a double in the second to extend the lead to 5-0 before William Jewell got on the board with two runs in the fourth and one in the fifth to pull within 5-3.
 
However, junior Jarret Clark drove in Kinnevan with a fielder's choice RBI and later scored on a wild pitch to make it 7-3. The Cardinals got one run back in the sixth before senior Daniel Seddon's RBI single in the bottom of the frame made it 8-4.
 
William Jewell scored once again in the top of the seventh, but Tritons closer Austin Simokaitis shut down the Cardinals to pick up his ninth save of the season, moving into third place on the single season charts.
 
Junior Kurt McGuire picked up the win on the mound, working five and one thirds of an inning. He scattered seven hits and allowed four runs, including two earned, while striking out four and walking two.
 
Seddon, Brinker and sophomore Jake Beckwith each added two hits.
 
GAME 2: William Jewell 7, UMSL 2
The Cardinals outhit the Tritons, 15-8, to collect the win, while UMSL was also plagued by three errors, which resulted in just one earned runs by the Tritons pitching staff.
 
Redshirt sophomore Kevin Smith recorded two hits and two RBIs, doubling to left center in the second to bring in junior Dominic Orlando before using a sac fly in the fourth to send Beckwith home. Orlando finished with three hits.
 
Clark had an 11-game hitting streak snapped, but drew a walk to extend his on base streak to 19 games.
 
Redshirt sophomore Andrew Bicklein took the loss in two and one-thirds of an inning, allowing five unearned runs on eight hits.