photo/Mizzou Athletics
Mizzou Baseball beat Chicago State, 7-6, in a wild extra innings game after the Tigers scored the winning run on a dropped fly ball in the 13th inning . Mizzou moves to 16-1 on the year, the longest win streak by a Mizzou team since 1981 and ties the longest active win streak in the nation this season. At 16-1, Mizzou is also off to the best start in program history through 17 games.
Columbia native Connor Brumfield was involved in the two biggest offensive moments of the game. After Chicago State hit a go-ahead, two-run homer in the 11th, the sophomore Brumfield hit a two-out, two-run double to tie the game at 6-6 in the bottom of the 11th. Mizzou loaded the bases in the 13th and Brumfield lifted a fly ball to left field which was dropped, allowing the winning run to score.
Mizzou left 18 men on base which almost proved costly. They also committed seven errors.
Head coach Steve Bieser was not happy with the win.
“This is the first time that I’ve said to the team that it was a very dissatisfying win. You hope to be hitting on all cylinders and playing great baseball heading into conference play. I don’t know if I’ve been part of a more poorly-played game than what we did today. We did it from all fronts. It wasn’t like just one thing hit us. Execution on the offensive side, on the defensive side. Late in the game we start going out of the zone swinging and getting ourselves out. There’s just a lot of things that we did wrong today. You never want to look past the game that we are playing – not making an excuses for anybody – but sometimes that happens. You’re looking at the weekend and what you are getting ready to do on the weekend. We came out flat and once we gave them some confidence, they gave us everything we want to and more. It took a toll on us. Having to use (Cole) Bartlett for four innings tonight was not something that we were planning on doing.”
The Tigers need to regroup quickly. Done are the Eastern Michigan’s, Illinois-Chicago’s and Chicago State’s. The schedule ramps up with the start of SEC play this weekend in Tuscaloosa as Mizzou takes on Alabama.
