Four Remain in Quest to win MVC Championship; Earn NCAA Regional Bid
Coming off a tough loss to Missouri State, 7-2, on the first day of Thursday’s action at the Missouri Valley Conference Baseball Championship, the Illinois State Redbirds had the unenviable task of taking on Belmont in the 2nd game yesterday with only about an hour between games. The Bruins capitalized on their scheduling advantage, downing the Redbirds, 7-3.
Belmont (26-33) scored the game’s first 6 runs and never looked back. Right fielder Ty Allen got the Bruins off to a great start in the 1st inning, hitting a 2-run homer to open the scoring. In the 2nd, Dean Spoto’s single to center plated Michael Lareau to make it 3-0. Blake Barton added to the lead with a 4th-inning solo homer before Mike Sprockett singled home 2 more runs in the 5th to make it 6-0.
Two of Illinois State’s (28-28) came thanks to Noah Smith, who got the Redbirds on the board in the 5th with a single that scored Luke Stulga. Smith then homered in the 8th to cut the Belmont lead to 7-2. Daniel Contreras’ sac fly in the 8th closed the scoring.
Allen and Spoto had 2 hits each for the Bruins, who advanced to take on the loser of today’s game between 2nd-seed Missouri State and #4 seed UIC. Sprockett, an Akron transfer, has been a star so far in this tournament, going 6-for-14 in 3 games with 2 doubles, 2 homers, 2 runs, and 9 RBIs.
Sprockett now has 12 homers on the season to go with 41 RBIs and a .277 average.
Zane Brown got the win for Belmont, going 6 1/3 innings and allowing just 1 run on 6 hits against a strong Redbird lineup. Brown walked 1 and struck out 2 on 84 pitches. Jake Timbes and Andrew Perry got the last 8 ours.
Smith finished 3-for-5 for Illinois State. Brayden Bakes went 2-for-3 with a walk. Stulga went 2-for-4.
Illinois State is eliminated after going 1-2 at the event. The Redbirds advanced out of the single-elimination round by beating Indiana State on Tuesday night.
#2 Missouri State 7, #5 Illinois State 2: The 2nd-seeded Bears used just 1 inning to scored the runs it needed to down the Redbird in a winner’s bracket game earlier Thursday. Missouri State (28-27) scored all 7 of its runs in the 4th inning to defeat Illinois State, 7-2.
Caden Bogenpohl and Taeg Gollert hoemred in the inning, with Bogenpohl’s being a 2-run shot and Gollert knocking in 3. Carter Bergman and Tyler Epstein also singled home runs for the Bears. Nick Rodriguez went 2-for-4 with a run, extending his school-record hitting streak to 38 games.
Illinois State didn’t go completely quietly, opening its scoring account in the 8th inning when Shai Robinson doubled home Bakes. In the 9th, Bakes was on the other end of the equation, as he singled to score Judah Morris to close the scoring.
Smith also had 3 hits in this one, giving him 6 for the day. But there wasn’t much offense to be had against Bears starter Jason Schaaf. The junior from Las Vegas and Indian Hills Community College played all the right cards in holding Illinois State to 1 run on 9 hits over 7 1/3 innings, with 2 walks and 2 strikeouts. Schaaf threw 106 pitches.
Max Knight and Jackson Holmes finished off the game, but not before Illinois State put 2 on with 2 out in the 9th. Holmes came on and retired Contreras for the final out.
#1 Murray State 10, #3 Southern Illinois 5: Dustin Mercer went 4-for-5 with a run and an RBI, while Carson Garner and Dan Tauken each had 3 hits to lead top-seeded Murray State to a 10-5 win over #3 Southern Illinois, ending the Salukis’ season at 37-20.
Tauken delivered both offensively and defensively for the Racers, hitting a 2-run double in the 8th to give Murray State its final 5-run margin of victory. In the field, he made a leaping catch at the wall in left field to take away a homer from SIU’s Michael Mylott. The home run would have given SIU a 6-5 lead in the 7th, and who knows how the game would have played out from there.
Garner’s 4-for-5 day included 4 singles. Tauken doubled twice. Nico Bermeo came off the bench to go 2-for-2 with a double, run, and RBI, including the go-ahead single in the 7th. Jonathan Hogart homered and drove in 3.
SIU struck first, however, scoring 2 runs in the 3rd inning on Cecil Lofton’s single. But Hogart’s 3-run homer and a bases-loaded walk to Luke Mistone gave Murray State (37-13) a 4-2 lead by the end of the frame. Down 5-3 in the 7th, SIU did tie it despite the home run robbery, as the Salukis had to settle for a Jaxon Holder single that scored Lofton to make it 5-5.
After Bermeo’s RBI single gave Murray State the lead for good, the Racers added on in the 7th as Conner Cunningham doubled home Tauken, then Mercer’s sac fly scored Bermeo.
Nic Schutte started and went 6 1/3 innings for the Racers, which allowed head coach Dan Skirka to just use 1 reliever – Dylan Zentko – to wrap the game up. Zentko, who has averaged more than 2 1/3 innings per appearance this season in relief, went 2 2/3 innings Thursday night to wrap up the game, striking out 2.
Timothy Simay homered and went 3-for-4 with 2 runs and an RBI for the Salukis, who scored 22 runs in this tournament but go home 0-2. Lofton had 2 hits and 2 RBIs. SIU finished the season with 113 home runs.
Ed Morgans is the founder of MVCBaseball.com. An Evansville graduate, Ed has written about and broadcast college baseball, while following the sport for 40 years.
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