ST. LOUIS – The University of Missouri-St. Louis baseball team took three out of four games in its weekend series against Truman State with a doubleheader split on Saturday afternoon at the UMSL Baseball Field. The Tritons improve to 9-11, 3-1 GLVC while the Bulldogs drop to 7-14, 1-7 GLVC.
Game 2 – UMSL 14, TSU 4 (8 innings)
Truman jumped out to the early lead with an unearned run in the second inning as Reed Drabant brought home Joey Fentress with an RBI single to left center.
UMSL answered in its half of the second sending eight men to the plate scoring four runs on four hits and an error.
Bennett Cagle put the Tritons in front with a two-run home run to left and later in the inning
LJ Randle and
Justin Terhaar had RBI singles to make it 4-1.
The Bulldogs chipped away with two runs in the third and a run in the fourth to tie it at 4-4.
UMSL broke out the bats in the fifth inning sending nine men to the plate scoring six runs on five hits.
Brandon Johnson put the Tritons back on top with a two-run home run to left.
Cade Grevengoed and
Justin Simard each scored on a wild pitch to make it 8-4.
Owen Faith hit a home run to left that made it 9-4 and Randle capped the inning scoring on a wild pitch.
UMSL got two more runs in the sixth on a two-run blast to left center off the bat of
Mitch Bonczkowski for his team leading fourth home run of the season. The Tritons' final two runs came in the eighth as
Noah Tomaras scored on a throwing error by the catcher on a stolen base attempt from Johnson and then Johnson scored on a sacrifice fly to center for the walk-off run-rule victory.
UMSL banged out 15 hits in the contest and were led by Terhaar, Bonczkowski, Simard, Cagle, Randle and
Garrett Strenger with two apiece.
Bryce Nicolay pitched seven solid innings giving up four runs, three earned, on eight hits with seven strikeouts to improve to 1-3 on the season.
Game 1 – TSU 6, UMSL 4
The Bulldogs came out swinging in the first game of the day scoring runs in each of the first five innings to take a 6-0 lead through 4.5 innings. Fentress and Shodai Nishihara each hit solo home runs for the Dogs while Tyler Tieman and Evan Davis each had RBI singles.
The Tritons chipped away getting a run in the fifth as Terhaar was robbed of a hit by Davis at third but a run did score as Simard came home from third. UMSL got three in the sixth as
Ethan Landis hit a two-run single and Grevengoed hit a pinch hit RBI single to center. The Tritons brought the go-ahead run to the plate in the frame but Terhaar flew out to right center to end the inning.
UMSL had the tying runs in scoring position in the seventh but Landis was called out on strikes to end the game.
The Tritons had nine hits in the opener and were led by Faith with two. Johnson took the loss giving up six runs, five earned, on eight hits with a walk and four strikeouts to drop to 0-2 on the season.
UMSL heads to Quincy, Ill., next weekend for a four-game series against the Hawks beginning on Friday at 2 p.m. at QU Stadium.
