ST. LOUIS – The University of Missouri-St. Louis baseball is making its first NCAA Tournament appearance 2003 and will take on Wayne State (Mich.) in an opening round contest this Thursday (May 14) at the UIS Baseball Field in Springfield, Ill., at 2 p.m.
The Tritons' last tournament appearance was when they were in the Great Lakes Region and went 0-2 that season at Grand Valley State as the Lakers won the regional title to advance to Montgomery, Ala., for the DII Championships.
UMSL looks to snap a six-game losing streak in the NCAA Tournament since winning the Central Regional in 1996 to advance to Montgomery, Ala.
The Tritons enter the NCAA Tournament having won 10 of their last 11 games including three straight wins at the GLVC Tournament last weekend defeating UIndy 6-4 and Missouri S&T 11-1 and 13-8.
Since the second game of the doubleheader against Southwest Baptist on March 28, UMSL has won 21 of its last 27 games and are 29-10 since starting the season dropping 10 of its first 14 contests.
The Triton offense is hitting .308 this season and is averaging 6.9 runs per game.
Mitch Bonczkowski is one of six hitters hitting over .300 in the lineup and leads the team with a .432 batting average with 22 home runs and 71 runs batted in with 170 total bases.
Justin Herhaar is second on the team with 81 hits and is hitting .393 while
Justin Simard has a .363 batting average and has driven in 31 runs.
On the pitching side,
Eli Cartwright and
Garrett Brunstetter have combined to go 14-3 with a 2.92 earned run average and a combined 137 strikeouts.
Dustin Hagens is 4-1 with a 3.03 ERA in 19 appearances with six saves as the closer.
Wayne State is making its first trip to the NCAA Tournament since 2023 when it went 0-2 in the Midwest Regional hosted at Quincy. The Warriors are 37-14 on the season including 17-7 in Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC) play and are 13-7 in their past 20 contests.
Drew Hill leads WSU with a .404 batting average while Owen Tuccinardi is hitting .318 with a team-leading 13 home runs and 55 RBIs.
On the mound, Will Lowry leads the Warriors with an 8-2 record and in 14 appearances is 8-2 with a 3.76 ERA with two complete games and a save. He has struck out 55 hitters in 69.1 innings of work.
Tickets are on sale online and can also be purchased at the field. It's $10 for adults and $6 dollars for youth and college students. An All-Tournament is also being sold for $25 which covers all seven games.
All seven games of the regional at Illinois Springfield will be streamed for free on the NCAA Champs Pass website.
The winner of Thursday's game will take on the winner of Thursday's first game between seventh seeded UIndy and second seeded Illinois Springfield at 2 p.m. on Friday while the losers will play in an elimination game at 11 a.m. on Friday.
