Joplin, Mo. - The postseason began for the Missouri Southern baseball team Friday afternoon, opening the first round of the MIAA Championships. As the two seed, Missouri Southern is hosting one of the first round, best of three series. Visiting Joplin as the seven seed is Northwest Missouri. The Lions opened the series with a statement, winning the contest 12-1 in seven innings.
After a three up, three down inning on defense, the Lions got the bats going early. Singles from
Drew Townsend,
Henry Kusiak, and
Will Doherty loaded the bases with one out. A ground out gave the Lions their first run of the game, then
Nate Mieszkowski singled through the left side to score two more, 3-0 MSSU after one.
Northwest responded with one in the second, what would end up being their lone run of the contest. Things were pretty quiet until the bottom of the fourth when Southern's bats exploded for 7 runs.
Nate Mieszkowski and
Treghan Parker singled, then
Drew Davis walked to load the bases for
Chayton Beck. He drove one up the middle, scoring two runs. A batter later,
Ethan Clark cleared the bases with a three-run double, making it 8-1.
Will Doherty later hit an RBI double as well, followed by a
Garrett Rice RBI single to send the game into the fifth with a 10-1 score.
In the bottom of the fifth,
Treghan Parker led off the half inning with a home run to right field. Southern scored one more run in the inning thanks to a
Will Doherty RBI single, making it 12-1. The Bearcats had one base runner in the final two innings, but nothing would come of that opportunity, ending the game in the seventh due to the run rule.
Will Doherty was 3-4 at the plate with a double, driving in 2 runs and scoring 2 himself.
Garrett Rice also had a 3 hit, 2 RBI day.
Treghan Parker was 2-4 with a home run, scoring 2 runs as well.
Nate Mieszkowski was the other Lion with multiple hits on the day, also driving in 2 runs.
Cole Gayman picked up his 10th victory of the season, tossing 6.0 innings. He surrendered just 1 run on 2 hits, striking out 4 batters in the process.
Game two of this best of three series will be played on Saturday. First pitch for that contest is scheduled for 1:00pm. If necessary, game three will be played on Sunday with a start time of 1:00pm.
