ST. LOUIS – The University of Missouri-St. Louis baseball team bounced back from a tough loss on Saturday sweeping McKendree 3-2 in nine innings and 4-2 on Saturday afternoon at the UMSL Baseball Field. The Tritons improve to 26-15, 17-10 while the Bearcats drop to 13-27, 7-20 GLVC.
Game 1 – UMSL 3 McKendree 2 9 innings
McKendree jumped out two a 2-0 lead in the third inning on a sacrifice fly from Noah Nelson and a dropped pop up in front of the plate that scored Matt Paule.
Down to its final three outs UMSL rallied in the seventh.
Kameron Laskowski led off the inning with a single to center and went to second on a fielding error by Chyran Cruse.
Logan Mantz walked to put the tying run at first.
Dane Stevenson lined a single to right that scored Laskowski and the ball got away from Brandon Ruth that allowed Mantz to advance to third. Stevenson was thrown out between second and third for the first out of the inning.
Barrett Rose lined a single down the right field line scoring Mantz with the tying run. The Tritons got the winning run in scoring position but
Mitchell Green hit into a 143 double play to end the inning.
Brady Krile retired the side in order in the eighth and worked around a two-out single in the ninth to keep the game tied.
UMSL won the game in the bottom of the ninth. Stevenson led off the inning with a bunt single back to the pitcher and throwing error allowed Stevenson to get to second.
Jordan Aguallo advanced Stevenson to third with a sacrifice bunt and then Stevenson scored on a wild pitch with
Andrew Buescher at the plate to end the game.
The Tritons had 12 hits in the contest and were led by Stevenson with three while Rose and
Logan McIntyre had two each.
Dustin Hagens went the first six innings giving up two runs, one earned, on two hits with seven strikeouts. Krile went the final three innings allowing two hits and struck out seven to improve to 3-1 on the season.
Game 2 – UMSL 4 McKendree 2
The Bearcats broke a scoreless tie with a run in the third. Cruse led off the inning with a single through the left side of the infield. With two out, Paule singled through the right-side advancing Cruse to third. Nelson brought Cruse home with a single to left.
UMSL was hitting the ball hard but had nothing to show for it until the fifth. With one out, Stevenson walked, stole second and advanced to third on Rose's sharp single that hit off the second baseman's leg and advanced into shallow right. Buescher tied the game with a hard-hit ground ball to second that deflected off the second baseman's glove and rolled away allowing Rose and Stevenson to advance.
McIntyre singled to left loading the bases for
Bryce Kulinski. Kulinski dumped a single into left that scored Rose with the go-ahead run.
Garrett Strenger followed with a single to left scoring Buescher.
The Tritons added an insurance run in the sixth.
Jake Isaacs led off the inning with a bunt single back to the pitcher and advanced to third error on a throwing error by the pitcher. With one out, Rose singled to center scoring Isaacs to make it 4-1.
McKendree got a run back in the seventh. Roth led off the inning with a ground-rule double to right center and scored on Kyle Czarnecki's single up the middle.
Zach Haygood retired the next three hitters to pick up the complete game victory.
UMSL had 11 hits in the nightcap and were led by Buescher with three while Rose and McIntyre had two hits each. Haygood struck out seven while allowing a run on four six hits to improve to 6-1.
The Tritons and Bearcats wrap-up their four-game series with a single game on Sunday afternoon starting at 1 p.m. at the UMSL Baseball Field.
